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ON THE 



FLORIDIAN PENINSULA, 



LITERARY HISTORY, 



INDIAN TRIBES AND ANTIQUITIES. 



DANIEL G. BRINTOJST, A. B. 



PHILADELPHIA : 
PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH SABIN, 

No. 27 South Sixth Strket, above Chestnut. 

1869. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 
DANIEL G. BRINTON, 

In the Clerk's office of the District Court, in and for the 
Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



KINO & BAIRD, PRINTERS, PHILADA. 



^ 'f.^' 



T THE 

LOVERS AND CULTIVATORS 

£>F THE 

HISTORY AND ARCHiEOLOGY OF OUR COUNTRY, 

THIS WORK 

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, 

BY THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE 



The present little work is tlie partial result of odd hours 
spent in the study of the history, especially the ancient 
history — if by this term I may be allowed to mean all that 
pertains to the aborigines and first settlers — of the peninsula 
of Florida. In some instances, personal observations during 
a visit thither, undertaken for the purposes of health in 
the winter of 1856-57, have furnished original matter, and 
served to explain, modify, or confimi the statements of 
previous writers. 

Aware of the isolated interest ever attached to merely 
local history, I have endeavored, as far as possible, by 
pointing out various analogies, and connecting detached 
facts, to impress upon it a character of general value to 
the archaeologist and historian. Should the attempt have 
been successful, and should the book aid as an incentive to 
the rapidly increasing attention devoted to subjects of this 
nature, I shall feel myself amply repaid for the hours of 
toil, which have also ever been hours of pleasure, spent in 
its preparation. 
Thorncuky, Pensa., AphiL, 1859. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

LITERARY HISTORY. 



PAGE. 

Introductory Remarks. — Tlie Early Explorations. — The 
French Colonies. — The First Spanish Supremacy. — 
The English Supremacy. — The Second Spanish 
Supremacy. — The Supremacy of the United States. — 
Maps and Charts 13 

CHAPTER II. 

THE APALACHES. 

Derivation of the Name. — Earliest Notices of. — Visited 
and Described by Bristock, in 1653. — Authenticity of 
his Narrative. — Subsequent History and Final Extinc- 
tion 92 

CHAPTER III. 

TRIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 

§ 1. Situation and Social Condition. — Caloosas. — Ais 

and Tegesta. — Tocobaga. — Vitachuco. — Utina. — So- 

turiba. — Method of Government. 
§ 2. Civilization. — Appearance. — Games.— Agriculture. 

— Construction of Dwellings. — Clothing. 
§ 3. Religion. — General Remarks. — Festivals in Honor 

of the Sun and Moon. — Sacrifices. — Priests. — Sejml- 

chral Rites. 
§ 4. Languages. — The Timuquana Tongue. — Words 

Preserved by the French Ill 



VI 11 CONTEXTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

LATER TRIBES. PAGE. 

§ 1. Yemassees. — Ucliees. — Apalacliicolos. — Migrations 

Nortliwards. 
§2. Seminoles 139 

CHAPTER V. 

THE SPANISH MISSIONS. 

Early Attempts. — Efforts of Aviles. — Later Missions. — 
Extent during the most Floiirisliing Period. — Decay.. 150 

CHAPTER VI. 

ANTIQUITIES. 

Mounds.— Roads.— Shell Heaps.— Old Fields 166 



APPENDIX I. 
The Silver Spring 183 

APPENDIX II. 
The Mummies of the Mississippi Valley 191 

APPENDIX IIL 
The Precious Metals Possessed by the Early Floridian 
Indians 199 



THE FLOPJDIAN PENINSULA. 



CHAPTER I. 

LITERARY HISTORY. 

Introductory Remarks. — The Early Explorations. — The French 
Colonies. — The first Spanish Supremacy. — The English 
Supremacy. — The second Spanish Supremacy. — The Su- 
premacy of the United States. — Maps and Charts. 

In the study of special and local history, the inquirer 
finds his most laborious task is to learn how much his 
predecessors have achieved. It is principally to obviate 
this difficulty in so far as it relates to a very interest- 
ing, because first settled portion of our country, that I 
present the following treatise on the bibliographical 
history of East Florida. A few words are necessary 
to define its limits, and to explain the method chosen 
in collocating works. 

In reference to the latter, the simple and natural 
plan of grouping into one section all works of whatever 
date, illustrating any one period, suggests itself as well 
adapted to the strongly marked history of Florida, how- 
ever objectionable, it might be in other cases. These 
periods are six in number, and consequently into six 
sections a bibliography naturally falls. The deeds of 
the early explorers, the settlement and subsequent 
destruction of the French, the two periods when Spain 
wielded the sovereign power, the intervening supre- 
macy of England, and lastly, since it became attached 
2 



14 FLOEIDIAN PENINSULA. 

to tlie United States, offer distinct fields of research, 
and are illustrated bj different types of books. Such an 
arrangement differs not materially from a chronological 
adnumeration, and has many advantages of its own. 

Greater difficulty has been experienced in fixing the 
proper limits of such an essay. East Florida itself has 
no defined boundaries. I have followed those laid 
down by the English in the Definitive Treaty of Peace 
of the 10th of February, 1763, when for the first time, 
East and West Florida were politically distinguished. 
The line of demarcation is here stated as <Uhe Apala- 
chicola or Chataouche river." The Spaniards afterwards 
included all that region lying east of the Rio Perdido. 
I am aware that the bibliography of the Spanish settle- 
ment is incomplete, unless the many documents relating 
to Pensacola are included, but at present, this is not 
attempted. It has been deemed advisable to embrace 
not only those works specially devoted to this region, 
but also all others containing original matter apper- 
taining thereto. Essays and reviews are mentioned 
only when of unusual excellence ; and a number of ex- 
clusively political pamphlets of recent date have been 
designedly omitted. 

As I have been obliged to confine my researches to 
the libraries of this country, it will be readily under- 
stood that a complete list can hardly be expected. Yet 
I do not think that many others of importance exist in 
Europe, even in manuscript ; or if so, they have escaped 
the scrutiny of the laborious Gustav Haenel, whose 
Catalogi Librorum Manuscriptorum I have examined 
with special reference to this subject. It is proper to 
add that the critical remarks are founded on personal 
examination in all cascS; except where the contrary is 
specified. 



LITER AKY HISTORY. 15 



§ 1.— The Early Explorations. 1512-1562. 

No distinct account remains of the two voyages 
(1512, 1521,) of the first discoverer and namer of 
Florida, Juan Ponce de Leon. What few particulars 
we have concerning them are included in the general 
histories of Herrera, Gomara, Peter Martyr, and of 
lesser writers. However much the historian may 
regret this, it has had one advantage, — the romantic 
shadowing that hung over his aims and aspirations is 
undisturbed, and has given them as peculiar property 
to the poet and the novelist. 

' Of Pamphilo de Narvaez, on the contrary, a much 
inferior man, we have far more satisfactory relations. 
His Proclamation to thelndians^ has been justly styled 
a curious monument of the spirit of the times. It 
was occasioned by a merciful (!) provision of the laws 
of the Indies forbidding war to be waged against the 
natives before they had been formally summoned to 
recognize the authority of the Pope and His Most 
Catholic Majesty. Should, however, the barbarians 
be so contumacious as to prefer their ancestral religion 
to that of their invaders, or their own chief to the 
Spanish king, then, says Narvaez, ^' With the aid of 
God and my own sword I shall march upon you ; with 
all means and from all sides I shall war against you ; 
I shall compel you to obey the Holy Church and his 
Majesty; I shall seize you, your wives and your 

1 Soramation a faire aux Habitants des Contrces et Pro- 
vinces qui s'etendent dcpuis la Riviere des Palmes et le cap 
de la Floride. Extrait dti livre des copies des Provinces de 
la Floride, Seville Cbambre da Commerce, 1527. It is the 
first piece in Ternaux-Compans' liecueil des Fieces sur la 
Floride. 



16 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

children ; I shall enslave you, shall sell you, or other- 
wise dispose of you as His Majesty may see fit ; your 
property shall I take, and destroy, and every possible 
harm shall I work you as refractory subjects/' Thus 
did cruelty and avarice stalk abroad in the garb of 
religion, and an insatiable rapacity shield itself by the 
precepts of Christianity. ♦ 

Among the officers appointed by the king to look 
after the royal interest in this expedition, holding the 
post of comptroller or factor (Tesorero), was a certain 
Alvar Nuiiez, of the distinguished family of Cabeza de 
Vaca or the Cow's Head ; deriving their origin and 
unsonorous name from Martin Alhaja, a mountaineer 
of Castro Ferral, who, placing the bones of a cow's 
head as a landmark, was instrumental in gaining for 
the Christians the decisive battle of Las Navas de 
Tolosa (1212), and was ennobled in consequence. 
When war, disease, and famine had reduced the force 
of Narvaez from three hundred to only half a dozen 
men, Alvar Nuiiez was one of these, and after seven 
years wandering, replete with the wildest adventure, 
returned to Spain, there to receive the government of 
a fleet and the appointment of Adelantado to the un- 
explored regions around the Rio de la Plata. Years 
afterwards, when his rapacity and reckless tyranny had 
excited a mutiny among his soldiers and the animosity 
of his associates, or, as his defenders maintain, his 
success their envy and ill-will, he was arraigned before 
the council of the Indies in Spain. While the suit 
was pending, as a stroke of policy in order to exculpate 
his former life and set forth to the world his steadfast 
devotion to the interests of the king, in conjunction 
with his secretary Pedro Fernandez he wrote and pub- 
lished two works, one under his own supervision 



LITERARY HISTORY. 17 

detailing his adventures in Florida,^ the other his 
transactions in South America. Twenty-seven years 
had elapsed since the expedition of Narvaez, and prob- 
ably of the few that escaped, he alone survived. When 
we consider this, and the end for which the book was 
written, what wonder that we find Alvar Nuiiez always 
giving the best advice which Narvaez never follows, 
and always at hand though other men fail ; nor, if we 
bear in mind the credulous spirit of the age and 
nation, is it marvellous that the astute statesman 
relates wondrous miracles, even to healing the sick and 
raising the dead, that he performed, proving that it 
was, as he himself says, <^ the visible hand of God" 
that protected him in his perilous roamings. Thus it 
happens that his work is " disfigured by bold exagger- 
ations and the wildest fictions," tasking even Spanish 
credulity to such an extent that Barcia prefaced his 
edition of it with an Examen Apologetico by the 
erudite Marquis of Sorito, who, marshalling together 
all miraculous deeds recorded, proves conclusively that 
Alvar Nuiiez tells the truth as certainly as many ven- 
erable abbots and fathers of the Church. However 
much this detracts from its trustworthiness, it is in- 
valuable for its ethnographical data, and as the only 
extant history of the expedition, the greatest miracle 
of all still remaining, that half a dozen unprotected 
men, ignorant of the languages of the natives and of 

' Naufragios de Alvar NuSez Cabeza de Vaca en la Florida, 
Valladolid, 1555 ; republished by Barcia, in the Historiadores 
Trimitivos de las Indias Occidentales, Tomo II., Madrid, 
1749; translated by Rarausio, Viaggi, Tom. III., Venetia, 
T55G, from which Purchas made his abbreviated translation, 
Vol. IV., London, 1024; translated entire, with valuable 
notes and maps by Buckingham Smith, "Washington, 1851. 
French translation by Ternaux-Compans, Paris, 18o7. 
9* 



18 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

tliclr proper course, should have safely journeyed three 
thousand miles, from the bay of Apalache to Sonora 
in Mexico, through barbarous hordes contiuually en- 
gaged in internecine war. Of the many eventful 
lives that crowd the stormy opening of American his- 
tory, I know of none more fraught with peril of 
every sort, none whose story is more absorbing, than 
that of Cabeza de Vaca. 

The unfortunate termination of Narvaez's under- 
taking had settled nothing. Tales of the fabulous 
wealth of Florida still found credence in Spain ', and 
it was reserved for Hernando de Soto to disprove them 
at the cost of his life and fortune. There are extant 
five original documents pertaining to his expedition. 

First of these in point of time is his commission 
from the emperor Charles V.^ 

The next is a letter written by himself to the Muni- 
cipality of Santiago,^ dated July 9, 1539, describing 
his voyage and disembarkation. Besides its historical 
value, which is considerable as fixing definitely the 
time and manner of his landing, it has additional in- 
terest as the only known letter of De Soto; short as 
it is, it reveals much of the true character of the man. 
The hopes that glowed in his breast amid the glitter- 
ing throng on the quay of San Lucar de Barrameda 
are as bright as ever : " Glory be to God,'^ he exclaims, 

1 Asiento y capitulacion heclio por el capitan Hernando de 
Soto, con el Emperador Carlos V., para la Conquista y Pob- 
lacion de la Provincia de la Florida, y encoraienda de la Uo- 
bernacion de la Isla de Cuba, 1537. Printed in 1844, in the 
preface to the Portuguese Gentleman's Narrative, by the Lis- 
bon Academy of Sciences, from the manuscript in the Hydro- 
graphical Bureau of iMadrid. 

^ Lettre ecrite par I'Adelantade Soto, au Corps INIunicipal 
de la Ville de Santiago, de I'lsle de Cuba. In Ternaux- 
Compans' Recueil des Pieces sur la Floride. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 19 

'f every thing occurs according to His will; He seems 
to take an especial care of our expedition, which lives 
in Him alone, and Him I thank a thousand times/' 
The accounts from the interior were in the highest 
degree encouraging : '^ So many things do they tell me 
of its size and importance,^' he says, speaking of the 
village of Ocala, << that I dare not repeat them." 
Blissful ignorance of the old cavalier, over which 
coming misfortune cast no presageful shadow ! 

The position that Alvar Nunez occupied under 
Narvaez t^as filled in this expedition by Ivuis Hernan- 
dez de Biedma, and like Nuiiez, he was lucky enough 
to be among the few survivors. In 1544, shortly after 
his return, he presented the king a brief account of his 
adventures.^ He dwells on no particulars, succinctly 
and intelligibly mentions their course and the princi- 
pal provinces through which they passed, and throws 
in occasional notices of the natives. The whole has 
an air of honest truth, differs but little from the gen- 
tleman of Elvas except in omission, and where there 
is disagreement, Biedma is often more probable. 

When the enthusiasm for the expedition was at its 
height, and the flower of Spanish chivalry was hieing 
to the little port of San Lucar of Barramcda, many 
Portuguese of good estate sought to enroll themselves 
beneath its banners. Among these, eight hidalgos 
sallied forth from the warlike little town of Elvas 
(Evora) in the province of Alemtejo. Fourteen years 
after the disastrous close of the undertaking, one of 

• Relation de ce que arriva pendant le Voyage du Capitaine 
Soto, et Details sur la Nature des pays qu'il parcourut, par 
Luis Hernandez de Biedma ; first printed in Ternaux-Corn- 
pan's Recwil; Eng. trans, by Rye, appended to the llackluyt 
Society's edition of the Portuguese Gentleman's Narrative, 
London. 1852. 



20 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

their number published anonymously in his native 
tongue the first printed account of it.^ Now which it 
was will probably ever remain an enigma. Because 
Alvaro Fernandes is mentioned last, he has been sup- 
posed the author,^ but unfortunately for this hypothe- 
sis, Alvaro was killed in Apalache.^ So likewise we 
have notices of the deaths of Andres de Vasconcelo 
and Men Roiz Pereira (Men Rodriguez); it is not 
likely to have been Juan Cordes from the very brief 
account of the march of Juan de Anasco, whom this 
hidalgo accompanied ; so it lies between Fernando and 
Estevan Pegado, Benedict Fernandez, and Antonio Mar- 
tinez Segurado. I find very slight reasons for ascrib- 
ing it to either of these in preference, though the least 
can be objected to the latter. Owing to this uncer- 
tainty, it is usually referred to as the Portuguese Gentle- 
man's Narrative. Whoever he was, he has left us by 
all odds the best history of the expedition. Superior 
to Bicdma in completeness, and to La Vega in accu- 

' Relacao Verdadeira dos Trabalhos q ho Gouernador do 
Ferniido d' Souto y certos Fidalgos Portugueses passarora no 
d' scobiimeto da provincia da Frolida. Agora nouamete feita 
per bu Fidalgo Deluas, 8vo., Evora, 1557; reprinted, 8vo., 
Lisboa, 1844, by the Academia Real das Sciencias, with a 
valuable preface. It was "contracted" by Purchas, vol. IV., 
London, 1G24 ; translated entire by Hackluyt, under the title, 
" Virginia richly valued by the Description of Florida, her 
next Neighbor," published both separately and in his Collec- 
tions, vol. v., and subsequently by Peter Force, Washington, 
184G, and by the Hackluyt Society, with a valuable introduc- 
tion by J. T. Rye, London, 1852; another "very inferior" 
translation from the French, London, 168G. French trans, 
by M. D. C. (M. de Citri de la Guette), 12mo., Paris, 1G85, 
and again in two parts, 1707-9. Dutch trans, in Van der 
Aa's Collection, Svo., 170(3, with " schoone kopere Platen," 
and a map. 

2 Buckingham Smith, Translation of Cabcza de Vaca, p. 12G. 

''Herrer-a, Dec. Xl\ , cap x , p. IG. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 21 

racy, of a tolerably finished style and seasoned with a 
dash of fancy, it well repays perusal even by the 
general reader. 

The next work that comes under our notice is in 
some respects the most remarkable in Spanish Historical 
Literature. When the eminent critic and historian 
Prescott awarded to Antonio de Solis the honor of 
being the first Spanish writer who treated history as 
an art, not a science, and first appreciated the indisso- 
luble bond that should ever connect it to poetry and 
belles-lettres, he certainly overlooked the prior claims 
of Garcias Laso or Garcilasso de la Vega. Born in 
Cusco in the year 1539,^ claiming by his mother the 
regal blood of the Incas, and by his father that of the 
old Spanish nobility, he received a liberal education 
both in Peru and Spain. With a mind refined by 
retirement, an imagination attuned by a love of poetry 
and the drama, and with a vein of delicate humor, he 
was eminently qualified to enter into the spirit of an 
undertaking like De Soto's. His Conquest of Florida^ 

■ Ticknor, in his History of Spanish Literature, says 1540 ; 
the Biographie Universelle, 1530 ; errors that may be cor- 
ructed from the Inca's own words : "Yo nasci el ailo mil y 
quinientes y treinta y nueve." Commentarios Reales, Parte 
Segunda, Lib. II., cap. xxv. 

^ La Florida del Inca ; Historia del Adelantado Hernando 
de Soto, Governador y Capitan General del Reino de la Flo- 
rida, y de otros Ileroicos Caballeros, EspaHoles y Indies ; 4to, 
Lisbona, 1605; folio, Madrid, 1723; 12mo., Madrid, 1803. 
French trans, by St, Pierre Richelet, Paris, 1670, and 1709; 
Leyde, 1731; La Haye, 1735; by J. Badouin, Amsterdam, 
1737. German trans, from the French, by H. S. Meier, 
Zelle, 1753 ; Nordhausen, 1785. Fray Pedro Abiles in the 
Censura to the second Spanish edition, speaks of a garbled 
Dutch translation or imitation, under the title (I retain his 
curious orthography), Der West Indis che Spiegel JDurch At- 
hanasium Inga, 2'enian von Cusco, T. Amsterdam, by Broer Jan- 
sen, 1624. 



22 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

is a true historical drama, whose catastrophe proves it 
a tragedy. He is said to lack the purity of Mariana, 
and not to equal De Solis in severely artistic arrange- 
ment ; but in grace and fascination of style, in gorgeous 
and vivid picturing, and in originality of diction — for 
unlike his cotemporaries, La Vega modelled his ideas 
on no Procustean bed of classical authorship — he is 
superior to either. None can arise from the perusal 
of his work without agreeing with Southey, that it is 
<^one of the most delightful in the Spanish language." 
But when we descend to the matter of facts and figures, 
and critically compare this with the other narratives, 
we find the Inca always gives the highest number, 
always makes the array more imposing, the battle more 
furious, the victory more glorious, and the defeat more 
disastrous than either. We meet with fair and gentle 
princesses, with noble Indian braves, with mighty deeds 
of prowess, and tales of peril, strange and rare. Yet 
he strenuously avers his own accuracy, gives with care 
his authorities, and vindicates their veracity. What 
then were these? First and most important were his 
conversations with a noble Spaniard who had accom- 
panied De Soto as a volunteer. His name does not 
appear, but so thorough was his information and so 
unquestioned his character, that when the Council 
Royal of the Indies wished to inquire about the expe- 
dition, they summoned him in preference to all others. 
What he related verbally, the Inca wrote down, and 
gradually moulded into a narrative form. This was 
already completed when two written memoirs fell into 
his hands. Both were short, inelegant, and obscure, 
the productions of two private soldiers, Alonso de 
Carmona and Juan Coles, and only served to settle 
with more accuracy a few particulars. Though the 



LITERARY HISTORY. 23 

narrative published at Elvas had been out nearly half 
a century before La Vega's work appeared, yet he had 
evidently never seen it; a piece of oversight less won- 
derful in the sixteenth century than in these index and 
catalogue days. They differ much, and although most 
historians prefer the less ambitious statements of the 
Portuguese, the Inca has not been left without defenders. 

Chief among these, and very favorably known to 
American readers, is Theodore Irving.* When this 
writer was pursuing his studies at Madrid, he came 
across La Vega's Historia. Intensely interested by 
the facts, and the happy diction in which they were 
set forth, he undertook a free translation ; but subse- 
quently meeting with the other narratives, modified his 
plan somewhat, aiming to retain the beauties of the 
one, without ignoring the more moderate versions of 
the others. In the preface and appendix to his His- 
tory of Florida, he defends the veracity of the Inca, 
and exhibits throughout an evident leaning toward his 
ampler estimates. His composition is eminently chaste 
and pleasing, and La Vega may be considered fortunate 
in having obtained so congenial an admirer. Entering 
fully into the spirit of the age, thoroughly versed in 
the Spanish character and language, and with such 
able command of his native tongue, it is to be regretted 
that the duties of his position have prevented Mr. 
Irving from further labors in that field for which he 
has shown himself so well qualified. 

Many attempts have been made to trace De Soto's 
route. Those of Homans, Charlevoix, Guillaume de 
risle and other early writers were foiled by their want 

1 The Conquest of Florida by Hernando de Soto, 2 vols. 
8 vo., Philadelphia, 1835; revised edition, 1 vol., 8vo., New 
York, 1851, with a map of De Soto's route. 



24 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

of correct geographical knowledge.* Not till the 
present century was anything definite established. 
The naturalist Nuttall^ who had personally examined 
the regions along and west of the Mississippi, and 
Williams^ who had a similar topographical acquaint- 
ance with the peninsula of Florida, did much toward 
determining either extremity of his course, while the 
philological researches of Albert Glallatin on the 
Choktah confederacy^ threw much light on the inter- 
mediate portion. Dr. McCulloh,^ whose indefatigable 
labors in the field of American archgsology deserve 
the highest praise, combined the labors of his prede- 
cessors and mapped out the march with much accuracy. 
Since the publication of his work. Dr. J. W. Monette,^ 
Col. Albert J. Pickett,? Alexander Meek,^ Theodore 
Irving,^ Charles Guyarre,*^ L. A. Wilmer," and others 

"• Charlevoix' scheme may be found in his Histoire de la 
Nouvelle France ; De I'lsle's in the fifth volume of the Voy- 
ages au Nord, and in his Atlas Nouveau ; Homans' is quoted 
by Warden in the Chronologie Historique de I'Amerique ; all 
in the first half of the eighteenth century. 

2 Travels into the Arkansa Territory, in 1819, Phila., 1821. 

3 Natural and Civil History of Florida. 

■* Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society, vol. II. 

^ Antiquarian Researches. 

^ History of the Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of 
the Mississippi, New York, 1846, vol. I. 

■^ History of Alabama, and incidentally of Georgia and Mis- 
sissippi, vol. I. 

^ Southern Monthly Magazine and Review for Jan., 1839. 

9 History of the Conquest of Florida. 
^° History of Louisiana. 

" Life, Travels, and Adventures of Ferdinand de Soto, 8vo., 
Philadelphia, 1858; an excellent popular compend. — Mr. 
Schoolcraft, in the third volume of the History of the Indian 
Tribes, has described from personal examination the coun- 
try in the vicinity of the Ozark mountains, with reference to 
the westernmost portion of De Soto's route. 



LITERAKY HISTORY. 25 

have bestowed more or less attention to the question. 
A very excellent resume of most of their labors, with 
an accompanying map, is given by Rye in his introduc- 
tion to the Hackluyt Society's edition of the Portuguese 
Gentleman's Narrative, who also adds a tabular com- 
parison of the statements of this and La Vega's 
account. 

From the failure of De Soto's expedition to the 
settlement of the French at the mouth of the St. 
John's, no very active measures were taken by the 
Spanish government in regard to Florida. 

A vain attempt was made in 1549 by some zealous 
Dominicans to obtain a footing on the Gulf coast. A 
record of their voyage, written probably by Juan de 
Araiia, captain of the vessel, is preserved;* it is a 
confused account, of little value. 

The Compte-Kendu of Guido de las Bazares,^ who 
explored Apalache Bay (Bahia de Miruelo) in 1559, 
to which is appended an epitome of the voyage of 
Angel de Villafane to the coasts of South Carolina in 
1561, and a letter from the viceroy of New Spain^ 
relating to the voyage of Tristan de Arellano to 
Pensacola Bay (Santa Maria de Galve), are of value 
in verifying certain important dates in the geographical 
history of our country ; and as they indicate, contrary 

1 Relation de la Floride pourl' Illustrissime Seigneur, Vice 
Roi de la Nouvelle Espagne, apporte par Frcre Gregorio de 
Beteta ; in Ternaux-Compans' Recueil. 

2 Compte Rendu par Guido de las Bazares, du voyage qu'il 
fait pour decouvrir les ports et les bales qui sont sur la cote 
de la Floride ; in Ternaux-Compans' Recueil. 

'^ Lettre du vice-roi de la Nouvelle Espagne, Don Luis de 
Velasco, a sa Sacree Majeste, Catholique et Royale, sur les 
affaires de la Floride. De Mexico, le 24 Septembre, 1559; 
in Ternaux-Compans' Recueil. 

3 



26 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

to the assertion of a distinguished living historian,^ that 
the Spaniards had not wholly forgotten that land, <' the 
avenues to which death seemed to guard/' 

Much more valuable than any of these is the 
memoir of Hernando D'Escalante Fontanedo.^ This 
writer gives the following account of himself: born of 
Spanish parents in the town of Carthagena in 1538, at 
the age of thirteen he was sent to Spain to receive his 
education, but suffering shipwreck off the Florida 
coast, was spared and brought up among the natives, 
living with various tribes till his thirtieth year. 
He adds that in the same ship with him were Don 
Martin de Gruzman, Hernando de Andino, deputy from 
Popayan, Alonso de Mesa, and Juan Otis de Zarate. 
Now at least one of these, the last mentioned, was 
never shipwrecked at any time on Florida, and in the 
very year of the alleged occurrence (1551) was 
appointed captain in a cavalry regiment in Peru, where 
he remained for a number of years f nor do I know 
the slightest collateral authority for believing that 
either of the others suffered such a casuality. He 
asserts, moreover, that after his return to Spain he 
sought the post of interpreter under Aviles, then 
planning his attack on the Huguenots. But as this 
occurred in 1565, how could he have spent from his 
thirteenth to his thirtieth year, beginning with 1551, 
a prisoner among the Indians? In spite of these 
contradictions, there remains enough to make his 
memoir of great worth. He boasts that he could 

1 Bancroft, History of the United States, vol. I., p. 60. 

2 Memoire sur la Floride, ses Cotes et ses Habitants, qu' 
aucun de ceux qui Font visite ont su d'ecrire ; in Ternaux- 
Compans' Recucil. 

3 Herrera, Dec. VIIT., lib. IX., cap. xviii. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 27 

speak four Indian tongues, that there were only two 
with which he was not familiar, and calls attention to 
what has since been termed their ^'polysynthetic'' 
structure. Thus he mentions that the phrase se-le-te-ga^ 
go and see if any one is at the look-out^ is compounded 
partially of tejiTiue, look-out; "but in speaking,^^ he 
observes, " the Floridians abridge their words more than 
we do/' Though he did not obtain the post of inter- 
preter, he accompanied the expedition of Aviles, and 
takes credit to himself for having preserved it from 
the traitorous designs of his successful rival : " If I 
and a mulatto," he says, ^< had not hindred him, all of 
us would have been killed. Pedro Menendez would 
not have died at Santander, but in Florida, where 
there is neither river nor bay unknown to me." For 
this service they received no reward, and he complains : 
<< As for us, we have not received any pay, and have 
returned with broken health ; we have gained very 
little therefore in going to Florida, where we received 
no advancement." Muiioz appended the following 
note to this memoir : " Excellent account, though of a 
man unaccustomed to writing, which is the cause of 
the numerous meaningless passages it contains." 
Ternaux-Compans adds: ^'Without finding, as Munoz, 
this account excellent, I thought it best to insert it 
here as containing valuable notices of the geography 
of Florida. It is often unintelligible; and notwithstand- 
ing all the pains I have taken in the translation, I 
must beg the indulgence of the reader." The geo- 
graphical notices are indeed valuable, particularly in 
locating the ancient Indian tribes. The style is crude 
and confused, but I find few passages so unintelligible 
as not to yield to a careful study and a comparison 
with cotemporary history. The memoir is addressed, 



28 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

" Tres puissant Seigneur/' and was probably intended 
to get its author a position. The date of writing is 
nowhere mentioned, but as it was not long after the 
death of Aviles (1574), we cannot be far wrong in 
laying it about 1580. 



§ 2.— The French Colonies. 1562-1567. 

Several distinct events characterize this period of 
Floridian history. The explorations and settlements 
of the French, their extirpation by the Spaniards and 
the founding of St. Augustine, the retaliation of De 

Gourgues , as they constitute separate subjects of 

investigation, so they may be assumed as nuclei around 
which to group extant documents. Compendiums of 
the whole by later writers form an additional class. 

First in point of time is Jean Ribaut's report to 
Admiral Coligny. This was never printed in the 
original, but by some chance fell into the hands of an 
Englishman, who published it less than ten months 
after its writer's return. ^ " The style of this transla- 
tion is awkward and crude, but the matter is valuable, 
embracing many particulars not to be found in any 
other account; and it possesses a peculiar interest as 

1 The whole and true Discoverye of Terra Florida, (En- 
glished, The Flourishing Land) conteyning as well the won- 
derful straunge Natures and Manners of the People, with the 
merveylous Commodities and Treasures of the Country ; as 
also the pleasant Portes and Havens and Wayes thereunto, 
never found out before the last year, 1562. Written in 
French, by Captain Ribauld, the fyrst that whollye discovered 
the same, and now newly set forthe in Englishe, the xxx. of 
May, 1563. Reprinted by Hackluyt, in his small black letter 
volume of 1583, but not in the folio collection. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 29 

being all that is known to liave come from the pen of 
Ribault."! 

Rene Laudonniere, Ribaut's companion and suc- 
cessor in command, a French gentleman of good edu- 
cation and of cultivated and easy composition, devotes 
the first of his three letters to this voyage. For the 
preservation of his writings we are indebted to the 
collector Basanier, whose volume of voyages will be 
noticed hereafter. The two narratives differ in no 
important particulars, and together convey a satis- 
factory amount of information. 

The second letter of Laudonniere, this time chief 
in command, is the principal authority on the next 
expedition of the French to Florida. It is of great 
interest no less to the antiquarian than the historian, 
as the dealings of the colonists continually brought 
them in contact with the natives, and the position of 
Laudonniere gave him superior opportunities for study- 
ing their manners and customs. Many of his descrip- 
tions of their ceremonies are as minute and careful 
as could be desired, though while giving them he 
occasionally pauses to excuse himself for dealing with 
such trifles. 

Besides this, there is a letter from a volunteer of - 
Rouen to his father, without name or date.^ Inte- 
rior evidence, however, shows it was written during 
the summer of 1564, and sent home by the return 
vessels which left Florida on the 28th July of that 

1 Jared Sparks, Life of Jean Ribault, American Biography, 
vol. VIL, p. 147.J 

^ Coppie d'vne Lettre venant de la Floride, envoyee a Rouen, 
et depuis au Seigneur d'Eueron, ensemVjle le Plan et Por- 
traict du Fort que les Francois y ont faict. Paris, 1565; 
reprint, without the "Plan et Portraict," in Ternaux Corn- 
pans' Reaieil. 

3* 



80 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

year. This was the earliest account of the French 
colony printed on the continent. Its contents relate 
to the incidents of the voyage, the manners of the 
"sauvages/' and the building of the fort, with which 
last the troops were busied at the time of writing. 

This and Hibaut's report made up the scanty know- 
ledge of the colonies of Coligny to be found in Europe 
up to the ever memorable year 1565 j memorable and 
infamous for the foulest crime wherewith fanaticism 
had yet stained the soil of the New World; memor- 
able and glorious, for in that year the history of our 
civilization takes its birth with the first permanent 
settlement north of Mexico. Two nations and two 
religions came into conflict. Fortunately we are not 
without abundant statements on each side. Five eye- 
witnesses lived to tell the world the story of fiendish 
barbarity, or divine Nemesis, as they variously viewed it. 

On the former side, the third and last letter of 
Laudonniere is a brief but interesting record. Simple, 
straightforward, it proves him a brave man and worthy 
Christian. He lays much blame on the useless delay 
of Ribaut, and attributes to it the loss of Florida. 

Much more complete is the pleasing memoir of N. 
C. Challeux (Ghallus, Challusius.)^ He tells us in 
his dedicatory epistle that he was a native of Dieppe, 
a carpenter by trade, and over sixty years of age at 
the time of the expedition. In another passage he 

1 Histoire Memorable du dernier Voyage aux Indes, Lieu 
appellee la Floride, fait par le capitaine Jean Ribaut et entre- 
pris par comandement du Roi en I'an 1565, Lyons, 1566 ; 
another edition at Dieppe the same year, with the title "Dis- 
cours de I'Histoire de la Floride," &c. Sparks says, "At 
least three editions were published the same year," Ter- 
naux-Compans republished the Lyons edition in his Recueil, 
which differs somewhat from that of Dieppe. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 31 

remarks, " Old man as I am, and all grey."' He es- 
caped with Laudonniere from Fort Caroline, and 
depicts the massacre and subsequent events with great 
truth and quaintness. He is somewhat of a poet, 
somewhat of a scholar, and not a little of a moralizer. 
At the beginning of the first edition are verses descrip- 
tive of his condition after his return, oppressed by 
poverty, bringing nought from his long rovings but 
" a beautiful white staff in his hand." " The volume 
closes with another effusion of his muse, expressing the 
joy he felt at again beholding his beloved city of 
Dieppe. "2 He is much given to diverging into prayers 
and pious reflections on the ups and downs of life, the 
value of contentment, and kindred subjects, seasoning 
his lucubrations with classical allusions. 

When Laudonniere was making up the complement 
of his expedition he did not forget to include a cun- 
ning limner, so that the pencil might aid the pen in 
describing the marvels of the New World he was 
about to visit. This artist, a native of Dieppe, Jac- 
ques le Moyne de Morgues by name, escaped at the 
massacre by the Spanish, returned with Laudonniere, 
and with him left the ship when it touched the coast 
of England. Removing to London he there married, 
and supported himself by his profession. During the 
leisure hours of his after years he sketched from 
memory many scenes from his voyage, adding in his 
native language a brief description of each, aiding his 
recollection by the published narratives of Challeux 

1 " Pour vieillard que je suls et tout gris ;" Sparks, mis- 
taking the last word for gros, rather ludicrously translates 
this, " Old man as he was and very corpulent." — Life of Jean 
Ribault, p. 148. 

2 Sparks, ibid., p. 149. 



82 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

and Laudonniere, duly acknowledging bis indebted- 
ness.^ Tbese paintings were familiar to Hackluyt, 
wbo gives it as one reason for translating tbe collec- 
tion of Basanier, tbat tbe exploits of tbe Frencb, ^^and 
diver otber tbings of cbiefest importance are lively 
drawn in colours at your no smal cbarges by tbe 
skillful painter James Morgues, sometime living in 
tbe Blackfryers in London/'^ Wben tbe enterprising 
engraver De Bry came to London in 1587, intent on 
collecting materials for bis great work tbe Peregrina- 
iiones, be was mucb interested in tbese sketcbes, and 
at tbe deatb of tbe artist, wbicb occurred about tbis 
time, obtained tbem from bis widow witb tbeir 
accompanying manuscripts. Tbey are forty-tbree in 
number, principally designed to illustrate tbe life and 
manners of tbe natives, and, witb a map, make up 
tbe second part of De Bry's collection. Eacb one is 
accompanied by a brief, well-written explanation in 
Latin, and at tbe close a general narrative of tbe 
expedition; togetber, tbey form a valuable addition to 
our knowledge of tbe aboriginal tribes and tbe pro- 
ceedings of tbe Huguenots on tbe Riviere Mai. 

Tbe Spanisb accounts, tbougb agreeing as regards 
tbe facts witb tbose of tbeir enemies, take a very dif- 
ferent tbeoretical view. In tbem, Aviles is a model of 
Cbristian virtue and valor, somewbat stern now and 
tben, it is true, but not more so tban tbe Cburcb per- 
mitted against sucb stiff necked beretics. Tbe mas- 
sacre of tbe Huguenots is excused witb cogent reason- 

' Brevis Narratio eorutn qute in Florida Americje Provin- 
cia, Gallis accideruut, secunda in illam Navigatione, Duce 
Renato de Laudonniere Classis prgefecto : Anno MDLXIIIL, 
Francofurti ad Moenum, 1591. '"* 

'^ Epistle Dedicatorie, Vol. IK., p. 364. 



LITERAEY HISTORY. 83 

ing; indeed, what need of any excuse for exterminating 
this nest of pestilent unbelievers? Could they be 
ignorant that they were breaking the laws of nations 
by settling on Spanish soil ? The Council of the 
Indies argue the point and prove the infringement in a 
still extant document.^ Did they imagine His Most 
Catholic Majesty would pass lightly by this taunt cast 
in the teeth of the devoutest nation of the world ? 

The best known witness on their side is Don Solis 
de Moras. His Memorial de todas las Jornadas y 
Sucesos del Adelantado Pedro Menendez de AvileSy 
has never been published separately, but all the perti- 
nent portions are given by Barcia in the Enmyo Cro- 
nologico para la Historia de la Florida, with a scru- 
pulous fidelity (sin abreviar su contexto, ni mudar su 
estilo). It was apparently written for Aviles, from the 
archives of whose family it was obtained by Barcia. 
It is an interesting and important document, the work 
of a man not unaccustomed to using the pen. 

Better than it, however, and entering more fully 
into the spirit of the undertaking, is the memoir of 
Lopez de Mendoza Grajales,^ chaplain to the expedition, 
and a most zealous hater of heretics. He does not aim 
at elegance of style, for he is diffuse and obscure, nor 
yet at a careful historical statement, for he esteems 



1 This seems to have escaped the notice of Mr. Sparks. It 
is in Ternaux-Compans' Recueil des Pieces sur la Floride^ 
appended to the Compte-Rendu of Guido de las Bazares, with- 
out a distinct title. 

^ Memoire de I'heureux resultat et du bon Voyage que 
Dieu notre Seigneur a bien voulu accorder a la flotte qui 
partit de la Ville de Cadiz pour se rendre a la Cote et dans la 
Province de la Floride, et dont (3tait general I'illustre Seig- 
neur Pedro Menendez de Aviles j in Ternaux-Compans' 
Recueil. 



34 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

liglitly common facts, but he does strive to sliow how 
the special Providence of God watched over the enter- 
prise, how divers wondrous miracles were at once proof 
and aid of the pious work, and how in sundry times 
and places God manifestly furthered the holy work of 
bloodshed. A useful portion of his memoir is that in 
which he describes the founding of St. Augustine, 
entering into the movements of the Spaniards with 
more detail than does the last-mentioned writer. 

When the massacre of the 19th September, 1565, 
became known in Europe, 'J the French were won- 
drously exasperated at such cowardly treachery, such 
detestable cruelty.'^^ Still more bitterly were they 
aroused when they learned the inexcusable butchery 
of Ribaut and his men. These had been wrecked on 
the Floridian shore, and with difficulty escaped the 
waves only to fall into the hands of more fell destroyers 
on land. When this was heard at their homes, their 
<^ widows, little orphan children, and their friends, rela- 
tives and connections," drew up and presented to Charles 
XXL., a petition,^ generally known as the Eplstola 

1 " Les Fran9ois furent merveilleusement oultrez d'une si 
lasche trahison, et d'une si detestable cruaulte. La Reprinse 
de la Floride ; Ternaux-Compans' Recucil, p. 306. 

2 Une Requete au Roi, faite en forme de Complainte par les 
Femmes Veufues, petits Enfans Orphelins, et autres leurs 
Amies, Parents et Alliez, de ceux qui ont €\.^ cruellement 
envahis par les Espagnoles en la France Antharctiques dite 
la Floride, Mai 22, 1566 : it is printed " in one of the editions 
of Challeux Discours, and also at the end of Chauveton's 
French translation of Benzoni, Geneva, 1579, There are two 
Latin translations, one by Chauveton appended to his Brevis 
Historia, and also to the sixth part of De Bry ; the other by 
an unknown hand contained in the second part. These are 
free translations, but they accord in the essential points." 
Jared Sparks, Appendix to Life of Ribaut, American Biog- 
raphy, vol. VIL, pp. 153-4. 



LITERAKY HISTORY. 85 

SuppUcaforia, setting forth the facts of the case and 
demanding redress. 

Though the weak and foolish monarch paid no marked 
attention to this, a man arose who must ever be classed 
among the heroes of history. This was Dominique de 
Gourgues, a high born Bourdelois, who, inspired with 
an unconquerable desire to wreak vengeance on the per- 
petrators of the bloody deed, sold his possessions, and 
by this and other means raised money sufficient to 
equip an expedition. His entire success is well known. 
Of its incidents, two, histories are extant, both by un- 
known hands, and both apparently written some time 
afterwards. It is even doubtful whether either writer 
was an eyewitness. Both, however, agree in all main 
facts. 

The one first written and most complete lay a long 
time neglected in the Bibliotheque du Roi.^ Within 
the present century it has been twice published from 
the original manuscript. It commences with the dis- 
covery of America by Columbus ; is well composed by 
an appreciative hand, and has a pleasant vein of philo- 
sophical comment running throughout. The details of 
the voyage are given in a careful and very satisfactory 
manner. 

The other is found in Basanier, under the title " Le 
Quatriesme Voyage des Frangois en la Floride, sous le 
capitaine Gourgues, en Fan 1567;" and, except the 
Introduction, is the only portion of his volume not 
written by Laudonniere. By some it is considered 
merely an epitome of the former, but after a careful 

1 La Reprinse de la Floride par le capitaine Gourgues; 
Revue Retrospective, seconde serie, Tome II. ; Ternaux-Com- 
pans' Eecueil. The latter was not aware of the prior publi- 
cation in the Revue. 



36 FLOKIDIAN PENINSULA. 

comparison T am more inclined to believe it writen by 
Basanier himself, from the floating accounts of his day 
or from some unknown relator. This seems also the 
opinion of his late editor. 

The manuscript mentioned by Charlevoix as existing 
in his day in the family of De Gourgues, was either a 
copy of one of these or else a third of which we have 
no further knowledge. 

Other works may moulder in Spanish libraries on 
this part of our narrative. We know that Barcia had 
access to certain letters and papers (Cartas y Papeles) 
of Aviles himself, which have never been published, 
and possessed the original manuscripts of the learned 
historiographer Pedro Hernandez del Pulgar, among 
which was a Ilistoria de la Florida^ containing an ac- 
count of the French colonies written for Charles II. 
But it is not probable that these would add any nota- 
ble increment to our knowledge. 

The Latin tract of Levinus Apollonius/ of extreme 
rarity, a copy of which I have never seen, is probably 
merely a translation of Challeux or Ribaut, as no 
other original account except the short letter sent to 
Rouen had been printed up to the date of its publica- 
tion. This Apollonius, whose real name does not 
appear, was a German, born near Bruges, and died at 
the Canary Islands on his way to America. He is 
better known as the author of De Peruvise Inventione, 
Lihri V., Antwerpide, 1567,^ a scarce work, not with- 
out merit. On the fly-leaf of the copy in the Yale 
College library is the following curious note ; 

• De Navigatione Gallorum in Terrain Floridam, deque clade 
an. 1565 ab Hispanis accepta. Antwerpiae, 1568,. 8vo. Barcia 
erroneously adds a second edition of 1583. 

^ Rich (Bibliotheca Americana) incorrectly states 1565. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 87 

" Struvius in Bibl. Antiq. hunc librum laudibus 
affert; et inter raros adnumerant David Clement, Bibl. 
Curieuse, Tom. I. ; pag; 403, Jo. Vogt, Catal ; libror; 
rarior; pag; 40, Freytag in Analec ; Literar; pag; 
31.^' 

Some hints of the life of Levinus may be found in 
his Epistola Nuncupatoria to this work, and there is a 
scanty article on him in the Biographic Universelle. 

A work of somewhat similar title^ was published in 
1578 by Yignon at Geneva appended to IJrbain Chau- 
veton's (Urbanus Calveton's) Latin translation of Ben- 
zoni. It is hardly anythmg more than a translation 
of Challeux, whom indeed Chauveton professes to fol- 
low, with some details borrowed from Andre The vet 
which the latter must have taken from the MSS. of 
Laudonniere. The first chapter and two paragraphs at 
the end are his own. In the former he says " he had 
been chiefly induced to add this short history to Ben- 
zoni's work, in consequence of the Spaniards at the 
time perpetrating more atrocious acts of cruelty in the 
Netherlands than they had ever committed upon the 
savages.'^ 

Items of interest are also found in the general his- 
tories of De Thou, (Thuanus,) a cotemporary, of 
L'Escarbot, of Charlevoix, and other writers. 

In our own days, what the elegant pen of Theodore 
Irving has accomplished for the expedition of De Soto, 
has been done for the early settlements on the St. 

1 De Gallorum Expeditione in Floridam et clade ab Hispanis 
non minus iniuste quam immaniter ipsis illata, Anno MDLXV. 
Brevis Historia ; Calveton, Novte Novi Orbis Historise, Ge- 
nevte, 1578; De Bry, Peregrinationes, Pars VI. ; French trans, 
in Chauveton's French trans, of IBenzoni, 1579. For the 
notice of this work I am principally indebted to Sparks. 
4 



88 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

Johns by the talented author of the Life of Ribault.^ 
He has no need of praise, whose unremitting industry 
and tireless endeavors to preserve the memory of their 
forefathers are so well known and justly esteemed by 
his countrymen as Jared Sparks. With what thorough- 
ness and nice discrimination he prosecutes his re- 
searches can only be fully appreciated by him who has 
occasion to traverse the same ground. His work is 
one of those finished monographs that leave nothing to 
be desired either as respects style or facts in the field 
to which it is devoted — a field " the most remarkable 
in the early history of that part of America, now in- 
cluded in the United States and Canada, as well in 
regard to its objects as its incidents." Appended to 
the volume is an ^^Account of the Books relating to 
the Attempts of the French to found a Colony in 
Florida.'' The reader will have seen that this has 
been of service to me in preparing the analogous por- 
tion of this essay ; and I have had the less hesitation 
in citing Mr. Sparks' opinions, from a feeling of entire 
confidence in his judgment. 

Before closing these two periods of bibliographical 
history, the labors of the collectors Basanier and Tcr- 
naux Compans, to whom we owe so much, should not 
pass unnoticed. The former is the editor of the let- 
ters of Laudonniere, three in number, describing the 
voyage of Ribaut, the building of Fort Caroline, and 
its destruction by the Spaniards, to which he adds an 
introduction on the manners and customs of the In- 
dians, also by Laudonniere, and an account of the 

^ Life of John Ribault, comprising an account of the first 
Attempts of the French to found a Colony in North America, 
Boston, 1845 ; in Vol. VII. of Sparks' American Biography. 



LTTERAEY HISTORY. 39 

voyage of De Gourgues.^ In tliis he was assisted by 
Hackluyt, who speaks of him as <^ my learned friend 
M. Martine Basanier of Paris/' and who translated 
and published his collection the year after its first 
appearance. Little is known of Basanier personally; 
mention is made by M. de Fetis in his Biographie des 
Musiciens of a certain Martin Basanier who lived 
about this time, and is probably identical. In the 
same year with his collection on Florida he published 
a translation of Antonio de Espejo's History of the 
Discovery of New Mexico. The dedication of the 
"Histoire Notable" is to the ''Illustrious and Virtu- 
ous Sir Walter Raleigh.'' According to the custom 
of those days, it is introduced by Latin and French 
verses from the pens of J. Auratus (Jacques Bore?), 
Hackluyt, and Basanier himself. As a curious sptci- 
men of its kind I subjoin the anagram of the latter on 
Walter Raleigh : 

"Walter Ralegh. 

La vertu Vlia d, gre. 

En Walter cognoissant la vertu s'estre encloso, 
J'ay combing Ralegh, pour y voir quelle chose 
Pourroit a si beau nom convenir a mon gr^ ; 
J'ay trouv^ que c'estoit ; la vertu Vha d grh." 

The first edition is rare, and American historians are 

1 L'Histoire Notable de la Floride situ^e es Indes Occiden- 
tales ; Contenant les troys Voyages faits en icelle par certaius 
Capitaines et Pilotes Fran9ois, descrits par le Capitaine Laudon- 
niere, qui y a coramande I'espace d'un an troys moys ; a la- 
quelle a est^ adjoust^ un quatriesme voyage par le Capitaine 
Gourgues. Mise en lumibre par M. Basanier, Gentil-homme 
Frangois Matheraaticien. Paris, 1586, 8vo., 124 pp ; re- 
printed Paris, 1853, with an Avertissement. Eng. trans. 
London, 4to, 1586, by R. H. (Richard Hackluyt,) who included 
it in his folio of 1600, reprinted in 1812. 



40 FLORIDTAN PENINSULA. 

under great obligations to the Parisian publishers for 
producing a second, and for preserving the original 
text with such care. 

The labors of Ternaux Compans throughout the en- 
tire domain of early American history, his assiduity 
in collecting and translating manuscripts, and in repub- 
lishing rare tracts, are too well known and generally 
appreciated to need special comment. Among his 
volumes there is one devoted to Florida, containing 
eleven scarce or inedited articles, all of which are of 
essential importance to the historian.^ These have 
been separately considered previously, in connection 
with the points of history they illustrate. 

§ 3. — The First Spanish Supremacy. 1567-1763. 

After the final expulsion of the French, Spain held 
the ascendancy for nearly two hundred years. Her 
settlements extended to the south and west, the 
natives were generally tractable, and at one period 
the colony flourished ; yet there is no more obscure 
portion of the history of the region now included in 
the United States. Except the Chronological Essay 
of Barcia, which extends over only a fraction of this 
period, the accounts are few in number, meagre in 
information, and in the majority of instances, quite 
inaccessible in this country. 

The verbal depositions of Pedro Morales and Nicolas 
Bourguignon,2 captives brought by Sir Francis Drake 

' Voyages, Relations, et Memoires Originaux pour servir a 
I'Histoire de rAmerique ; seconde serie; Recueil des Pieces 
sur la Floride, Paris, 1841. 

2 The Relation of Pedro Morales, a Spanyard which Sir 
Francis Drake brought from St. Augustines in Florida, -where 



LITERARY niSTORY. 41 

to London, from his attack on St. Augustine, (1586,) 
are among the earliest notices we possess. They were 
written out by Richard Hackluyt, and inserted in his 
collection as an appendix to Drake's Voyage. Both 
are very brief, neither filling one of his folio pages; 
they speak of the Indian tribes in the vicinity, but 
in a confused and hardly intelligible manner. Nicolas 
Bourguignon was a Frenchman by birth, and had been 
a prisoner among the Spaniards for several years. He 
is the '^Phipher,'' mentioned in Drake's account, who 
escaped from his guards and crossed over to the En- 
glish, playing the while on his fife the march of the 
Prince of Orange, to show his nationality. 

Towards the close of the century, several works 
were published in Spain, of which we know little but 
their titles. Thus, mention is made of a geographical 
description of the country [Descripcion y Calidades de 
la Florida) by Barrientes, Professor of the Latin lan- 
guage at the University of Salamanca, about 1580. 
It is probably nothing more than an extract from 
the Co^mographia, attributed by some to this writer. 
Also, about the same time, Augustin de Padilla Davila, 
a Dominican, and Bishop of St. Domingo, published an 
ecclesiastical history of the See of Mexico and the pro- 
gress of the faith in Florida.* Very little, however, 
had been achieved that early in the peninsular and 
consequently his work would in this respect interest 

he remayned sixe yeeres, touching the state of those partes, 
taken from his mouth by Richard Hackluyt, 1586. 

The relation of Nicholas Bourgoignon, alias Holy, whom 
Sir Francis Drake brought from St. Augustine, also in Flo- 
rida,where he had remayned sixe yeeres, in mine and Master 
Heriot's hearing. Voyages, Vol. III., pp. 432-33. 

1 Varia Historia de la Nueva Espaua y la Florida; 
Madrid, 1596; Valladolid, 1634. 
4* 



42 FLOEIDIAN TENINSULA. 

US but little. The reports of the proceedings of the 
Council of the Indies, doubtless contain more or less 
information in regard to Florida; Barcia refers especi- 
ally to those published in 1596.^ 

Early in the next century there appeared an account 
of the Franciscan missionaries who had perished in 
their attempts to convert the savages of Florida.^ The 
author, G-eronimo de Ore, a native of Peru, and who 
had previously filled the post of Professor of Sacred 
Theology in Cusco, was, at the time of writing, com- 
missary of Florida, and subsequently held a position 
in the Chilian Church, (deinde commissarius Floridse, 
dcmum imperialis civitatis Chilensis regni antistcs.)^ 
He was a man of deep erudition, and wrote various 
other works ^^very learned and curious," (mui doctos 
y curiosos.^) 

Pursuing a chronological order, this brings us to the 
peculiarly interesting and valuable literature of the 
Floridian aboriginal tongues. Here, as in other parts 
of America, we owe their preservation mainly to the 
labors of missionaries. 

As early as 1568, Padre Antonio Sedeno, who had 
been deputed to the province of Guale, now Amelia 
Island, between the mouths of the rivers St. Johns and 
St. Marys, drew up a grammar and catechism of the 
indigenous language.'^ It was probably a scion of the 

1 Cedulas y Provisiones Reales de las Indias ; Varies In- 
formes y Consultos de dilferentes Ministros sobre las Cosas de 
la Florida; 4to Madrid, 1596. 

'•^ Relacion de los Martires que ha avido en la Florida ; 4to, 
(Madrid?) 1604. 

^ Nicolas Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana Nova, Tom. II., p. 
43, and Compare "Garcilasso, Commentarios Reales, Parte 
II., lib. VIL" 

* Barcia, Ensayo Cronologico, p. 181. 

^ "En breve tiempo hiz6 (Padre Antonio Sedeno) Arte para 



LITERARY HISTORY. 43 

Muskobge family, but as no philologist ever examined 
Sedeiio's work — indeed, it is uncertain whether it was 
ever published — we are unprepared to speak decisively 
on this point. 

The only works known to be in existence are those 
of Franceso de Pareja.* He was a native of the vil- 
lage of Aunon,2 embraced the Franciscan theology, and 
was one of the twelve priests dispatched to Florida by 
the Royal Council of the Indies in 1592. He arrived 
there two years afterwards, devoted himself to con- 
verting the natives for a series of years, and about 

aprenderla, y Catecismo para enseiiar la Doctrina Cristiana 
li los Indios." Barcia, Ensayo Cronologico, p. 138. His 
labors have escaped the notice of Ludewig in his Literature 
of American Aboriginal Languages. Though they are the 
first labors, before him the French on the St. Lawrence had 
obtained lists of words in the native tongue which still remain, 
and Laudonniere, on the first voyage of Ribaut, (1562,) says 
of the Indians near the Savannah river, " cognoissans Tafl^ec- 
tion que j'avois de s^avoir leur langage, ils m' invitoient 
apres a leur demander quelque chose. Tellement que mettant 
par escrit les termes et locutions indiennes, je pouvois en- 
tendre la plus grande part de leur discourse Hist. Notable 
de la Floride, p. 29. Unfortunately, however, he did not 
think these worthy of publication. 

1 Confessionario en Lengua Castellana y Timuquaua. Im- 
preso con liceucia en Mexico, en la Emprenta de la viuda de 
Diego Lopez Daualos ; Aiio de 1G13, 12mo., 238 leaves. Ni- 
colas Antonio says 1612, 8vo., but this is probably a mistake. 

Grammatica de la Lengua Timuquana, 8vo., Mexico, 1614; 
not mentioned by Ludewig. 

Catecismo y Examen para los que comulgan, Svc, Mexico, 
1614 ; reprinted " en la imprenta de Juan Kuyz," Svo., 1627. 

^ Ludewig says Toledo; Torquemada calls him "Natural 
de Castro-Urdiales," but Nicolas Antonio says expressly, 
" Franciscus de Pareja, Auiionensis (Toletanas dioecesis 
Auilon oppidum est)." Cibliotheca Hispana Nova, Tom. I., 
p. 456. Lesides this writer, see for particulars of the life 
of Pareja, Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, Lib, XIX., cap. 
XX , p. 350, and Barcia, Ensayo Cronologico, pp. 167, 105, 203. 



44 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

1610 removed to the city of Mexico. Here he re- 
mained till the close of his life, in 1638, (January 25, 
O. S.,) occupied in writing, publishing, and revising 
a grammar of the Timuquana language, prevalent 
around and to the north of St. Augustine, and devo- 
tional books for the use of the missionaries. They are 
several in number, but all of the utmost scarcity. I 
cannot learn of a single copy in the libraries of the 
United States, and even in Europe; Adelung, with 
all his extensive resources for consulting philological 
works, was obliged to depend altogether on the extracts 
of Hervas, who, in turn, confesses that he never saw 
but one, and that a minor production of Pareja. This 
is the more to be regretted, as any one in the slightest 
degree acquainted with American philology must be 
aware of the absolute dearth of all linguistic know- 
ledge concerning the tribes among whom he resided. 
His grammar, therefore, is second to none in import- 
ance, and no more deserving labor could be pointed 
out than that of rendering it available for the pur- 
poses of modern research by a new edition. 

A Doctrina Cristiana and a treatise on the admin- 
istration of the Sacraments are said to have been 
written in the Tinqua language of Florida by Fray 
Gregorio Morrilla, and published " the first at Madrid, 
1631, and afterwards reprinted at Mexico, 1635, and 
the second at Mexico, 1635."^ What nation this was, 
or where they resided is uncertain. 

The manuscript dictionary and catechism of the 
Englishman Andrew Yito, << en Lengua de Mariland 
en la Florida," mentioned in Barcia's edition of Pinelo, 
and included by Ludewig among the works on the 

' Ludewig, Literature of American Aboriginal Languages, 
p. 212. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 45 

Timuquana tongue, evidently belonged to a language 
far to the north of this, probably to one spoken by a 
branch of the Lenni Lennapes. 

Throughout the seventeenth century notices of the 
colony are very rare. Travellers the most persistent 
never visited it. One only, Francesco (Francois) 
Coreal, a native of Carthagena in South America, 
who spent his life in wandering from place to place in 
the New World, seems to have recollected its existence. 
He was at St. Augustine in 1669, and devotes the 
second chapter of his travels to the province.^ It de- 
rives its value more from the lack of other accounts 
than from its own intrinsic merit. His geographical 
notions are not very clear at best, and they are hope- 
lessly confounded by the interpolations of his ignorant 
editor. The authenticity of his production has been 
questioned, and even his own existence disputed, but 
no reasonable doubts of either can be entertained after 
a careful examination of his work. 

Various attempts were made by the Spanish to ob- 
tain a more certain knowledge of the shores and 
islands of the Gulf of Mexico during this period. A 
record of those that took place between 1685 and 
1693^ is mentioned by Barcia, but whether it was ever 
published or not, does not appear. 

About this time the Franciscan Juan Ferro Macuardo 
occupied the post of inspector (Visitador General) of 

1 Voiages aux Indes Occidentales ; traduits de I'Espagnol ; 
Amsterdam, 1722. Dutch trans, the same year. Another 
edition under the title, Recueil de Voyages dans I'Amerique 
Meridionale, Paris, 1738, which Brunet does not notice. 

2 Relacion de los Viages que los Espafloles han hecho a 
las Costas del Seno Mexicano y la Florida desde el auo de 
1685 hasta el de 1693, con una nueva Descripcion de sus 
Costas. 



4:6 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

the church in Florida under the direction of the 
bishop of Cuba. Apparently he found reason to be 
displeased with the conduct of certain of the clergy 
there, and with the general morality of the missions, 
and subsequently, in his memorial to the king,^ han- 
dled without gloves these graceless members of the 
fraternity, telling truths unpleasant to a high degree. 
In consequence of these obnoxious passages, its sale 
was prohibited by the church on the ground that such 
revelations could result in no advantage.^ Whether 
this command was carried out or not, — and it is said 
to have been evaded — the work is rare in the extreme, 
not being so much as mentioned by the most compre- 
hensive bibliographers. Its value is doubtless consid- 
erable, as jfixing the extent of the Spanish settlements, 
at this, about the most flourishing period of the 
colony. The Respuesta which it provoked from the 
pen of Francisco de Ayeta, is equally scarce. 

The next book that comes under our notice we owe 
to the misfortune of a shipwreck. On the ^' twenty- 
third of the seventh month," 1696, a bark, bound 
from Jamaica to the flourishing colony of Philadelphia, 
was wrecked on the Floridian coast, near Santa Lucea, 
about 27° 8', north latitude. The crew were treated 
cruelly by the natives and only saved their lives by 
pretending to be Spaniards. After various delays and 
much sufi"ering they prevailed on their captors to con- 
duct them to St. Augustine. Here Laureano de 
Torres, the governor, received them with much kind- 

1 Memorial en Derecho al Rei sobre la Visita a la Florida y 
otras Cosas, folio, Madrid, 1690. 

2 '< Solo sirven de dar Escandalo al Vulgar en los Excesos 
impatados a unos y otros Individuos," Barcia, Ensayo Cliron- 
ologico, p. 300. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 47 

ness, relieved their necessities, and furnished them 
with means to return home. Among the passengers 
was a certain Jonathan Dickinson a Quaker resident 
in Pennsylvania. On his arrival home, he pub- 
lished a narrative of his adventures,^ that attracted 
sufficient attention to be reprinted in the mother 
country and translated into German. It is in the 
form of a diary, introduced by a preface of ten pages 
filled with moral reflections on the beneficence of God 
and His ready help in time of peril. The style is 
cramped and uncouth, but the many facts it contains 
regarding the customs of the natives and the condition 
of the settlement give it value in the eyes of the 
historian and antiquarian. Among bibliopolists the 
first edition is highly prized as one of the earliest 
books from the Philadelphia press. The printer, 
Reinier Jansen, was "an apprentice or young man" 
of William Bradford, who, in 1688, published a little 
sheet almanac, the first printed matter in the province. ^ 
After his return the author resided in Philadelphia till 
his death, in 1722, holding at one time the office of 
Chief Justice of Pennsylvania. He must not be con- 
founded with his better known cotemporary of the 

1 God's Protecting Providence Man's Surest Help and De- 
fence, In the times of the greatest difficulty and most Im- 
minent danger, Evidenced in the Remarkable Deliverance of 
divers Persons from the devouring Waves of the Sea, amongst 
which they suffered Shipwrack, And also from the more cruelly 
devouring jawes of the inhumane Cannibals of Florida. Faith- 
fully related by one of the Persons concerned therein. Phila- 
delphia, 1699, 1701, and 2i fourth edition, 1751. London, 
1700. German trans. Erstaunliche Geschichte des Schiff- 
bruches den einige Personen im Meerbusen von Florida 
erlitten, Frankfort, 1784, and perhaps another edition at 
Leipzic. 

^ Thomas, History of Printing in America, vol. II. p. 25. 



48 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

same name, staunch Presbyterian, and first president 
of the College of New Jersey, of much renown in 
the annals of his time for his fervent sermons and 
addresses. 

The growing importance of the English colonies on 
the north, and the aggressive and irritable character of 
their settlers, gave rise at an early period of their exist- 
ence to bitter feelings between them and their more 
southern neighbors, manifested by a series of attacks 
and reprisals on both sides, kept alive almost continu- 
ally till the cession to England in 1763. So much did 
the Carolinians think themselves aggrieved, that as 
early as 1702, Colonel Moore, then governor of the 
province, made an impotent and ill-advised attempt to 
destroy St. Augustine; for which valorous undertaking 
his associates thought he deserved the fools-cap, rather 
than the laurel crown. An account of his Successes,^ 
or more properly Misfortunes, published in England the 
same year, is of great rarity and has never come under 
my notice. Of his subsequent expedition, undertaken 
in the winter of 1703-4, for the purpose of wiping 
away the stigma incurred by his dastardly retreat, 
so-called, from St. Augustine, we have a partial account 
in a letter from his own pen to Sir Nathaniel Johnson, 
his successor in the gubernatorial post. It was pub- 
lished the next May in the Boston News, and has been 
reprinted by Carroll in his Historical Collections. The 
precise military force in Florida at this time may be 

' The Successes of the English in America, by the March of 
Colonel Moore, Governor of South Carolina, and his taking 
the Spanish Town of St. Augustine near the Gulph of Florida. 
And by our English Fleete sayling up the Rirer Darian, and 
inarching to the Gold Mines of Santa Cruz de Cana, near 
Santa Maria. London, 1702 ; reprinted in an account of the 
South Sea Trade, London, 1711. Bib. Primor. Amer. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 49 

learned from the instructions given to Don Josef deZu- 
niga, Governor-General in 1703, preserved by Barcia. 

Some years afterwards Captain T. Nairns, an En- 
glishman, accompanied a band of Yemassees on a slave 
hunting expedition to the peninsula. He kept a jour- 
nal and took draughts on the road, both of which 
were in the possession of Herman Moll,* but they were 
probably never published, nor does this distinguished 
geographer mention them in any of his writings on his 
favorite science. 

Governor Oglethorpe renewed these hostile demon- 
strations with vigor. His policy, exciting as it did 
much odium from one party and some discussion in 
the mother country, gave occasion to the publica- 
tion of several pamphlets. Those that more particu- 
larly refer to his expedition against the Spanish, are 
three in number,^ and, together with his own letters to 
his patrons, the Duke of Newcastle and Earl of Ox- 
ford,^ and those of Captain Mcintosh, leader of the 
Highlanders, and for some time a captive in Spain, 
which are still preserved in manuscript in the Library 

' 1 See the note on his New Map of the North Parts of 
America, London, 1720, headed "Explanation of an Expedi- 
tion in Florida Neck by Thirty Three lamasee Indians, Ac- 
company'd by Capt. T. Nairn." 

^ A voyage to Georgia, begun in the year 1735, by Francis 
Moore; London, 1741; reprinted in the Collection of the 
Georgia Historical Society, Vol. I. 

An Impartial Account of the Expedition against St. Augus- 
tine under the command of General Oglethorpe ; 8vo., Lon- 
don, 1742. {Rich.) 

Journal of an Expedition to the Gates of St. Augustine in 
Florida, conducted by General Oglethorpe. By G. L, Camp- 
bell ; 8vo., London, 1744. {Watts.) 

3 They are in the Rev, George White's Historical Collec- 
tions of Georgia, pp. 462, sqq., and in Harris's Memorials ef 
Oglethorpe. 

5 



50 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

of the Georgia Historical Society/ furnish abundant 
information on the English side of the question; while 
the correspondence of Manuel de Montiano, Captain - 
General of Florida, extending over the years 1737-40, 
a part of which has been published by Captain Sprague^ 
and Mr. Fairbanks,^ but the greater portion still remain- 
ing inedited in the archives of St. Augustine, oflfers a 
full exposition of the views of their opponents. 

A very important document bearing on the relations 
between the rival Spanish and English colonies, is the 
Report of the Committee appointed by the Commons 
House of Assembly of Carolina, to examine into the 
cause of the failure of Oglethorpe's expedition. In the 
Introduction* are given a minute description of the town, 
castle and military condition of St. Augustine, and a full 
exposition of the troubles between the two colonies, 
from the earliest settlement of the English upon the 
coast. Coming from the highest source, it deserves 
entire confidence. 

Besides these original authorities, the biographies of 
Governor Oglethorpe, by W. B. 0. Peabody, in Sparks' 
American Biography, by Thomas Spalding, in the pub- 
lications of the Georgia Historical Society, and especially 

1 An extract may be found in Fairbank's History and An- 
tiquities of St. Augustine. 

2 History of the Florida War. Cb. viii. 

3 History of St. Augustine. Ch, xiv. 

4 Statements made in the Introduction to a Report on 
General Oglethorpe's Expedition to St. Augustine. In B. R. 
Carroll's Hist. Colls, of South Carolina, Vol. II., New York, 
1836. Various papers in the State Paper Office, London, 
mentioned in the valuable list in the first volume of the 
Colls, of the S. Car. Hist. Soc. (Charleston, 1857) which fur- 
ther illustrate this portion of Floridian history, I have, for 
obvious reasons, omitted to recapitulate here. 



LITERxVRY HISTORY. 61 

that by the Rev. T. M. Harris, are well worthy of com- 
parison in this connection. 

In the catalogue of those who have done signal ser- 
vice to American history by the careful collation of 
facts and publication of rare or inedited works, must 
ever be enrolled among the foremost Andres Gonzales 
Barcia. His three volumes of Historiadores Primitives 
de las Indias Occidentales, are well known to every one 
at all versed in the founts of American history. His 
earliest work of any note, published many years before 
this, is entitled A Chronological Essay on the History 
of Florida. 1 He here signs himself, by an anagram on 
his real name, Don Gabriel de Cardenas z Cano, and is 
often referred to by this assumed title. In accordance 
with Spanish usage, under the term Florida, he em- 
braced all that part of the continent north of Mexico, 
and consequently but a comparatively small portion is 
concerned with the history of the peninsula. What 
there is, however, renders it the most complete, and 
in many cases, the only source of information. The 
account of the French colonies is minute, but naturally 
quite one-sided. He is "in all points an apologist for. 
his countrymen, and an implacable enemy to the Here- 
tics, the unfortunate Huguenots, who hoped to find an 
asylum from persecution in the forests of the New 
World.'''' The Essay is arranged in the form of an- 
nals, divided into decades and years, (Decadas, Anos,) 
and extends from 1512 to 1723, inclusive. Neither 
this nor any of his writings can boast of elegance of 
style. In some portions he is even obscure, and at 
best is not readable by any but the professed historian. 

1 Ensayo Cronologico para la Historia General de la Flo- 
rida, fol. Madrid, 1723. 

2 Jared Sparks, Life of Ribaut, p. 155. 



52 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

Among writers in our own tongue, for indefatigability 
in inquiry, for assiduity in collecting facts and homeli- 
ness in presenting them, he may not inaptly be com- 
pared to John Strype, the persevering author of the 
Ecclesiastical Memorials. 

His work was severely criticised at its appearance by 
Don Josef de Salazar, historiographer royal to Philip 
V, ^'a man of less depth of research and patient inves- 
tigation than Barcia, but a more polished composer." 
He was evidently actuated in part by a jealousy of his 
rival's superior qualifications for his own post. The 
criticism repays perusal. None of Salazar's works are 
of any standing, and like many another, he lives in 
history only by his abuse of a more capable man. 

In the preface to his History of Florida, Mr. Wil- 
liams informs us that he had in his possession " a rare 
and ancient manuscript in the Spanish language, in 
which the early history of Florida was condensed, with 
a regular succession of dates and events.'' He adds, 
that the information here contained about the Catholic 
missions and the extent of the Spanish power had been 
'^invaluable'' to him. If this was an authentic manu- 
script, it probably dated from this period. Williams 
obtained it from Mr. Fria, an alderman of New York, 
and not understanding the language himself, had it 
translated. It is to be regretted that he has not im- 
parted more of the "invaluable information" to his 
readers. The only passages which he quotes directly, 
induce me to believe that he was imposed upon by a 
forgery, or, if genuine, that the account was quite 
untrustworthy. Thus it spoke of a successful expedi- 
tion for pearls to Lake Myaco, or Okee-chobee, which 
I need hardly say, is a body of fresh water, where the 
Mya margaratifera could not live. The extent of the 



LITEEARY HISTORY. 53 

Franciscan missions is grossly exaggerated, as I shall 
subsequently show. Rome at no time chartered a 
great religious province in Florida, whose principal 
house was at St. Augustine ;i nor does Mr. Williams' 
work exhibit any notable influx of previously unknown 
facts about the native tribes, though he says on this 
point, his manuscript was especially copious. On the 
whole, we need not bewail the loss, or lament the 
non-publication of this record. 

The latest account of the Spanish colony during this 
period, is that by Captain Robinson, who visited the 
country in 1754. It is only a short letter, and is 
found appended to Roberts' History of Florida. 

In the language of the early geographers, however, 
this name had a far more extensive signification, and 
many books bear it on their title pages which have 
nothing to do with the peninsula. Thus an interest- 
ing tract in Peter Force's collection entitled "A Rela- 
tion of a Discovery lately made on the Coast of 
Florida," is taken up altogether with the shores of 
South Carolina. The superficial and trifling book of 
Daniel Coxe, insignificant in everything ,but its title, 
proposes to describe the Province "by the Spaniards 
called Florida," whereas the region now bearing this 
name, was the only portion of the country east of the 
Mississippi and south of the St. Lawrence not included 
in the extensive claim the work was written to defend. 
la the same category is Catesby's Natural History of 
Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands. This dis- 
tinguished naturalist during his second voyage to 
America, (172'2) spent three years in Carolina, <' and 
in the adjacent parts, which the Spaniards call Florida, 

1 Nat. and Civil Hist, of Fla., p. 175. 
5* 



51 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

particularly that province lately honored with the name 
of G-eorgia." How much time he spent in the penin- 
sula, or whether he was there at all, does not appear. 

§ 4.— The English Supremacy. 1763-1780. 

No sooner had England obtained possession of her 
new colony than a lively curiosity was evinced respect- 
ing its capabilities and prospects. To satisfy this, 
AYilliam Roberts, a professional writer, and author of 
several other works, compiled a natural and civil his- 
tory of the country, which was published the year of 
the cession, under the supervision of Thomas Jefferys, 
geographer royal. ^ It ran through several editions, 
and though it has received much more praise than is 
its proper due, it certainly is a useful summary of the 
then extant knowledge of Florida, and contains some 
facts concerning the Indians not found in prior works. 
The natural history of the country is mentioned no- 
where out of the title page ; the only persons who 
paid any attention worth speaking of to this were the 
Bartrams, father and son. Their works come next 
under our notice. 

John Bartram was born of a Quaker family in 
Chester county, Pennsylvania, in 1701. From his 
earliest youth he manifested that absorbing love for the 
natural sciences, especially botany, that in after years 
won for him from no less an authority than the immor- 
tal Linnaeus, the praise of being ^^ the greatest botanist 

1 An Account of the First Discovery and Natural History 
of Florida, with a Particular Detail of the several Expedi- 
tions made on that Coast. Collected from the best Autho- 
rities by William Roberts. Together with a Geographical 
Description of that Country, by Thomas Jefferys. 4to, Lon- 
don, 1763, pp. 102. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 5o 

iu the New World.'' He was also the first in point 
of time. Previously all investigations had been prose- 
cuted by foreigners in a vague and local manner. 
Bartram went far deeper than this. On the pleasant 
banks of the Schuylkill, near Philadelphia, he con- 
structed the first botanic garden that ever graced the 
soil of the New World ; here to collect the native 
flora, he esteemed no journey too long or too danger- 
ous. After the cession, he was appointed " Botanist 
to His Majesty for both the Floridas," and though 
already numbering over three-score years, he hastened 
to visit that land whose name boded so well for his 
beloved science. Accompanied only by his equally 
enthusiastic son William, he ascended the St. Johns in 
an open boat as far as Lake George, daily noting down 
the curiosities of the vegetable kingdom, and most of 
the time keeping a thermometrical record. On his 
return, he sent his journal to his friends in England 
under whose supervision, though contrary to his own 
desire, it was published. ^ It makes a thin quarto, 
divided into two parts paged separately. The first is 
a general description of the country, apparently a re- 
print of an essay by the editor. Dr. Stork, a botanist 
likewise, and member of the Boyal Society, who had 
visited Florida. The second ; part is Bartram's diary, 
enriched with elaborate botanical notes and an Intro- 
duction by the editor. It is merely the daily jottings 

' A description of East Florida. A Journal upon a Journey 
from St. Augustine up the River St. Johns as far as the 
Lakes. 4to., London, 17GC; 1769 ; and a third edition whose 
date I do not know. Numerous letters interchanged between 
John Bartram and Peter CoUinson relative to this botanical 
examination of Florida, embracing some facts not found in 
his Journal, are preserved in the very interesting and valua- 
able Memorials of John Bartram and Humphrey Marshall, by 
Dr. Wm. Darlington, p. 208, sqq. (8vo. Phila,, 1849.) 



6Q FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

of a traveller and could never have been revised ; but 
the matter is valuable both to the naturalist and 
antiquary. 

The younger Bartram could never efface from his 
memory the quiet beauty and boundless floral wealth 
of the far south. About ten years afterwards there- 
fore, when Dr. Fothergill and other patrons had fur- 
nished him the means to prosecute botanical researches 
throughout the Southern States, he extended his jour- 
ney to Florida. He made three trips in the peninsula, 
one up the St. Johns as far as Long Lake, a second 
from " the lower trading house,'' where Palatka now 
stands, across the savannas of Alachua to the Suwan- 
nee, and another up the St. Johns, this time ascending 
no further than Lake George. The work he left is in 
many respects remarkable;^ '^ it is written" said Cole- 
ridge " in the spirit of the old travellers." A genuine 
love of nature pervades it, a deep religious feeling 
breathes through it, and an artless and impassioned 
eloquence graces his descriptions of natural scenery, 
rendering them eminently vivid and happy. With all 
these beauties, he is often turgid and verbose, his 
transitions from the sublime to the common-place jar 
on a cultivated ear, and he is too apt to scorn anything 
less than a superlative. Hence his representations 
are exaggerated, and though they may hold true to 
him who sees unutterable beauties in the humblest 
flower, to the majority they seem the extravaganzas 
of fancy. He is generally reliable, however, in regard 

1 Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East 
and West Florida, and the Cherokee Country, Phila., 1791 ; 
1794. London, 1792 Dublin, 1793. French trans, by P. 
V. Benoist, Voyage dans les Parties Sud de I'Amcrique, 
Septcatrionale, Paris, ItOl ; 1807. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 57 

to single facts, and as he was a quick and keen obser- 
ver of every remarkable object about him, his work 
takes a most important position among our authorities, 
and from the amount of information it conveys respect- 
ing the aborigines, is indispensable to the library of 
every Indianologist. 

A very interesting natural history of the country is 
that written by Bernard Komans.^ This author, in 
his capacity of engineer in the British service, lived a 
number of years in the territory, traversing it in 
various directions, observing and noting with care both 
its natural features and the manners and customs of 
the native tribes. On the latter he is quite copious 
and is one of our standard authors. His style is dis- 
cursive and original though occasionally bombastic, 
and many of his opinions are peculiar and bold. 
Extensive quotations from him are inserted by the 
American translator in the Appendix to Volney's 
View of the United States. He wrote various other "^' 
works, bearing principally on the war of independence. 
A point of interest to the bookworm in his History is 
that the personal pronoun I, is printed throughout as 
a small letter. 

A work on a contested land title, privately printed 
in London for the parties interested about the middle 
of this period,^ might possess some little interest from 
the accompanying plan, but in other respects is prob- 
ably valueless. There is a manuscript work by John 



1 A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida. 
New York printed : sold by R. Aitken, Bookseller, opposite 
the Loudon CofFee-House, Front Street, 1776. 

2 The case of Mr. John Gordon with respect to the Title to 
certain Lands in East Florida, &c. With an Appendix and 
rian. 4to, pp. 76, London, 1772. (Rich.) 



58 FLOEIDIAN PENINSULA. 

Gerard Williams de Brahm, preserved in the library of 
Harvard College, which <' contains some particulars of 
interest relative to Florida at the period of the En- 
glish occupation/'^ Extracts from it are given by Mr. 
Fairbanks, descriptive of the condition of St. Augus- 
tine from 1763 to 1771, and of the English in the 
province. This De Brahm was a government surveyor, 
and spent a number of years on the eastern coasts of 
the United States while a British province. 

Among the many schemes set in motion for peopling 
the colony, that of Lord Kolls who proposed to trans- 
port to the banks of the St. Johns the cyprie7ines and 
degraded femmes du pave of London,^ and that of Dr. 
Turnbull, are especially worthy of comment. The 
latter collected a colony from various parts of the 
Levant, — from Greece, from Southern Italy, and from 
the Minorcan Archipelago — and established his head 
quarters at New Smyrna. The heartless cruelty with 
which he treated these poor people, their birth-place 
and their fate, as well as the fact that from them most 
of the present inhabitants of St. Augustine receive 
their language, their character, and the general name 
of Minorcans, have from time to time attracted atten- 
tion to their history. Besides notices in general works 
on Florida, Major Amos Stoddard in a work on Louis- 
iana^ sketches the colony's rise and progress, but he is 
an inaccurate historian and impeachable authority. It 

* Fairbanks, Hist, and Antiqs. of St. Augustine, p. 164, seq. 

2 He did not meet with that success which attended a 
similar experiment in Canada, so amusingly described by 
Baron de La Hontan. For some particulars of interest con- 
sult Bartram, Travels, p. 94, seq., Yignoles, Obs. on the Flo- 
ridas, p. 73. 

3 Sketches, Historical and Descriptive, of Louisiana, vol. I, 
8vo., Ch. IL Philadelphia, 1812. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 59 

is the only portion of his chapter on the Floridas of 
any value. In 1827, an article upon them was pub- 
lished in France by Mr. Mease/ which I have not 
consulted, and a specimen of their dialect, the Maho- 
nese, as it existed in 1843, in the Fromajardis or 
Easter Song, has been preserved by Bryant, and is a 
curious relic.3 



§ 5. — The Second Spanish Supremacy. 
1780-1821. 

During this period few books were published on 
Florida and none whatever in the land of the regainers 
of the territory. The first traveller who has left an 
account of his visit thither is Johann David Schopf,=^ 
a German physician who had come to America in 1777, 
attached to one of the Hessian regiments in the British 
service. At the close of the war he spent two years 
(1783-4) in travelling over the United States previous 
to returning home, a few weeks of which, in March, 
1784, he passed in St, Augustine. He did not pene- 
trate inland, and his observations are confined to a 
description of the town, its harbor and inhabitants, 

1 Notice sur le Colonie Greque ctablie a New Smyrna 
(Floride) dans I'annde, 1768. Societe de Geographie, T. VII., 
p. 31. {Koner.} 

2 G. R. Fairbanks, Hist, and Antiqs. of St. Augustine, Cb. 
XVIII. See also for other particulars, Bartram, Travels, p. 
144, and note, Vignoles, Obs. on tbe Floridas, p. 72, J. D. 
Schopf, Reise---nach, Ost-Florida, B. II., s. 363, 367, seq., 
■who knew TurnbuU personally and defends him. 

2 Reise durcb einige der mitlern und siidlicben Vereinigten 
Nordamerikanischen Staaten nach Ost-Florida und der Baba- 
nia-Iuseln. 2 Tb., 8vo,, Erlangen, 1788. 



60 FLOEIDIAN PENINSULA. * 

and some notices of the botany of the vicinity — for it 
was to natural history and especially medical botany 
that Schiipf devoted most of his attention during his 
travels. The difficulties of Spain with the United 
States in regard to boundaries gave occasion for some 
publications in the latter country. As early as 1797, 
the President addressed a message to Congress " relative 
to the proceedings of the Commissioner for running 
the Boundary Line between the United States and 
East and West Florida," which contains a resume of 
what had been done up to that date. 

Andrew Ellicott, Commissioner in behalf of the 
United States, was employed five years in determin- 
ing these and other boundaries between the possessions 
of our government and those of His Catholic Majesty. 
He published the results partially in the Transactions 
of the American Philosophical Society, and more fully 
several years afterwards in a separate volume.* They 
are merely the hasty notes of a surveyor, thrown 
together in the form of a diary, without attempt at 
digestion or connection ; but he was an acute and care- 
ful observer, and his renseignements on the topography 
of East Florida are well worth consulting. Among 
the notable passages is a vivid description of the 
remarkable meteoric shower of November 12, 1799, 
which he encountered off the south-western coast of 
Florida, and from which, conjoined with the observa- 
tions of Humboldt at Cumana, and others, the periodi- 
city of this phaenomenon was determined by Palmer, of 
New Haven. 



1 The Journal of an Expedition during the years 1796- 
1800, for determining the Boundaries between the United 
States and the Possessions of his Catholic Majesty in 
America, 4to., Philadelphia, 1814. 



LITEEARY HISTORY. 61 

A geographical account of Florida is said to have 
appeared at Philadelphia about this time, from the pen 
of John Mellishji ]3ut; unless it forms merely a part of 
the general geography of that author, I have been able 
to find nothing of the kind in the libraries of that city. 

The article on Florida in the important work on 
America of Antonio de Alcedo," derives some import- 
ance from the list of Spanish governors it contains, 
which, however, is not very perfect; but otherwise is 
of little service. 

Serious difficulties between the Seminole Indians^ 
and the whites of Georgia, occurred at an early date 
in this period arising from attempts of the latter to 
recapture fugitive slaves. These finally resulted in 
the first Seminole war, and attracted the attention of 
the general government. The action taken in respect 
to it may be found in the Ex. Doc. No. 119, 2d Ses- 
sion, XVth Congress, which contains "the official 
correspondence between the War Department and 
General Jackson; also that between General Jackson 
and General Gaines, together with the orders of each, 
as well as the correspondence between the Secretary 
of the Navy and Commodore Patterson, and the orders 
of the latter officer to Sailing-Master Loomis, and 
the final report of Sailing-Master Loomis and General 
Clinch;'^* also in two messages of the President 

1 A Description of East and West Florida and the Bahama 
Islands, 1 Vol. 8vo. Philadelphia, 1813. {Bib. Univ. des 
Voyages. ) 

2 Geographical and Historical Dictionary of America and 
the West Indies ; translated, with valuable additions, by Gr. R. 
Thompson, 5 vols., 4to, London, 1812. 

3 An account of this tribe by Major C. Swan, who visited 
them in 1791, has been published by Schoolcraft in the fifth 
volume of the Hist, and Statistics of the Indian Tribes. 

* Giddings, Exiles of Elorida, p. 30^ note. 
G 



62 FLORIDIAN" PENINSULA. 

during 1818, on the Seminole war, one of wbich con- 
tains the documents relative to Arbuthnot and Am- 
bruster, the Cherokees, Chocktaws, &c., and in the 
speeches of the Hon. Eobert Poindexter, and others. 
Dr. Monette and Mr. Giddings, in their historical 
works, have also examined this subject at some length. 

Two accounts of the fiUibustering expeditions that 
resulted in the forcible possession of Amelia Island by 
Captain MacGregor, have been preserved; one, ^^the 
better of the two,'' by an anonymous writer.^ They 
are both rare, and neither have come under my in- 
spection. 

An important addition to our knowledge of East 
Florida during this period, is contained in the enter- 
taining Letters of Dr. William Baldwin.* This gentle- 
man, a surgeon in the United States Navy, and a 
devoted lover of botany, compelled to seek safety from 
a pulmonary complaint by taking refuge in a warm 
climate during the winter months, passed portions of 
several years, commencing with 1811, in East Florida 
and on the confines of Georgia, occupying himself in 
studying the floral wealth of those regions. He re- 
corded his observations in a series of letters to Dr. 
Muhlenberg of Lancaster, and to the subsequent edi- 
tor of his Remains, Dr. William Darlington, of West 
Chester, Pa., well known from his works on the local 

1 Narrative of a Voyage to the Spanish Main by the ship 
Two Friends, the Occupation .of Amelia Island by McGregor, 
Sketches of the Province of East Florida, and Anecdotes of 
the Manners of the Seminole Indians, 8vo., London, 1819. 

Memoir of Gregor McGregor, comprising a Narrative 

of the Expedition to Amelia Island. By M. Rafter. 8vo., 
Stockdale, 1820. {Rich.) 

^ Reliquioo Baldwiniana; ; Selections from the Correspond- 
ence of the late Wm. Baldwin, M. D., compiled by Wm. Dar- 
lington, M. D. 12mo. rhila., 1843. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 63 

and historical botany of our country, and whom I have 
already had occasion to advert to as the editor of the 
elder Bartram's Correspondence. While those to the 
former have no interest but to the professed botanist, 
his letters to the latter are not less rich in information 
regarding the condition of the country and its inhabi- 
tants, than they are entertaining from the agreeable 
epistolary style in which they are composed, and the 
thanks of the historian as well as the naturalist are due 
to their editor for rescuing them from oblivion. It 
was the expectation of Dr. Baldwin to give these 
observations a connected form and publish them under 
the subjoined title,i but the duties of his position and 
his untimely death prevented him from accomplishing 
this design. As far as completed, comprising eight 
letters, twenty pages in all, this work is appended to 
the Eeliquise. 

The cession of Florida to the United States, natur- 
ally excited considerable attention, both in England 
and our own country, manifested by the appearance of 
several pamphlets, the titles of two of the most note- 
worthy of which are given below.^ 

* Notices of East Florida, and the Sea Coast of the State of 
Georgia ; in a series of Letters to a Friend in Pennsylvania. 
With an Appendix, containing a Register of the Weather, and 
a Calendarium Floras. The friend here referred to was Dr. 
Wm. Darlington. The materials for the Calendarium are 
preserved in the letters to Dr. Muhlenberg. 

2 J. L. Rattenbury. Remarks on the Cession of Florida to 
the United States of America, and on the necessity of acquir- 
ing the Island of Cuba by Great Britain. Second edition, with 
considerable additions, printed exclusively in the Pamph- 
leteer. London, 1819. 

Memoir upon the Negotiations between Spain and the 
United States, which led to the Treaty of 1819 ; with a Sta- 
tistical Notice of Florida, Svo., Washington, 1821. 



64 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

Numerous manuscripts pertaining to the history of 
the colony are said to have been carried away by the 
Catholic clergy at the time of the cession, many of 
which were deposited in the convents of Havana, and 
probably might still be recovered. 



§ 6. — The Supremacy or the United States. 
1821-1858. 

No sooner had the United States obtained possession 
of this important addition to her territory, than emi- 
grants, both from the old countries and from the more 
northern States, prepared to flock thither to test its 
yet untried capabilities. Information concerning it 
was eagerly demanded and readily supplied. In the 
very year of the cession appeared two volumes, each 
having for its object the elucidation of its geography 
and topography, its history, natural and civil. 

One of these we owe to William Darby ,^ an engineer 
of Maryland, not unknown in our literary annals as a 
general geographer. It is but a compilation, hastily 
constructed from a mass of previously known facts, to 
satisfy the ephemeral curiosity of a hungry public. 
As far as is known of his life, the author never so 
much as set foot in the country whose natural his- 
tory he proposes to give, and he will err widely who 
hopes to find in it that which the pretentious title- 
page bids him expect. 

A much superior work is that of James Grant 
Forbes.^ This gentleman was a resident of the ter- 

' A Memoir of the Geography, and Natural and Civil His- 
tory of East Florida, 8vo., Philadelphia, 1821. 

^ Sketches of the History and Topography of Florida, Svc, 
New York, 1821. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 65 

ritory, and had ample opportunities for acquiring a 
pretty thorough knowledge of its later history, both 
from personal experience and from unpublished docu- 
ments. He is consequently good authority for facts 
occurring during the British and later Spanish admin- 
istrations. Though at the time of publication the sub- 
ject of considerable praise, his work has since been 
denounced, though with great injustice, as "a wretched 
compilation from old works."* 

The next year a little book appeared anonymously 
at Charleston. 2 The writer, apparently a physician, 
had travelled through Alachua county, and ascended 
the St. Johns as far as Volusia. It consists of a gene- 
ral description of the country, a diary of the journey 
through Alachua, and an account of the Seminole In- 
dians with a vocabulary of their language. Some of 
his observations are not without value. 

The next work in chronological order was written 
by Charles Vignoles, a "civil and topographical engi- 
neer," and subsequently public translator at St. Augus- 
tine. In the Introduction he remarks, " The following 
observations on the Floridas have been collected dur- 
ing a residence in the country ; in which period several 
extensive journeys were made with a view of obtain- 
ing materials for the construction of a new map, and 
for the purpose now brought forward." He notices 
the history, topography, and agriculture, the climate 
and soil of the territory, gives a sketch of the Keys, 
some account of the Indians, and is quite full on 

' Compare the North Am, Review, Vol. XIIL, p. 98, with 
the same journal, Vol. XXVI., p. 482. {Rich.) 

2 Notices of East Florida, with an Account of the Seminole 
Nation of Indians. By a recent Traveller in the Province. 
Printed for the Author. 8vo. Charleston, 1822. pp. 105. 
6* 



6Q FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

Land Titles, then a very important topic, and adds to 
the whole a useful Appendix of Documents relative 
to the Cession.^ Yignoles is a dry and uninteresting 
composer, with no skill in writing, and his observations 
were rather intended as a commentary on his map 
than as an independent work. 

Energetic attempts were shortly made to induce 
immigration. Hopes were entertained that a colony 
of industrious Swiss might be persuaded to settle near 
Tallahassie, where it was supposed silk culture and 
vine growing could be successfully prosecuted. When 
General Lafayette visited this country he brought 
with him a series of inquiries, propounded by an in- 
telligent citizen of Berne, relative to the capabilities 
and prospects of the land. They were handed over to 
Mr. McComb of that vicinity. His answers^ are 
tinged by a warm fancy, and would lead us to believe 
that in middle Florida had at last been found the veri- 
table Arcadia. Though for their purpose well suited 
enough, for positive statistics it would be preferable to 
seek in other quarters. 

In 1826, there was an Institute of Agriculture, 
Antiquities, and Science organized at Tallahassie. At 
the first (and, as far as I am aware, also the last) pub- 
lic meeting of this comprehensive society. Colonel 
Gadsden was appointed to deliver the opening address.^ 

1 Observations on the Floridas. 8vo. New York, 1823. 
pp. 197. 

^ Answers of David B. McComb, Esq., with an accompany- 
ing Letter of General Lafayette. Svo. Tallahassie, 1827. 
See the North Am. Review, Vol. XXVL, p. 478. 

3 Oration delivered by Colonel James Gadsden to the Flo- 
rida Institute of Agriculture, Antiquities and Science, at its 
first Public Anniversary, Thursday, Jan. 4th, 1827. See the 
North Am. Review, Vol. XXV., p. 219. 



LITEKAEY HISTORY. 67 

This was afterwards printed and favorably noticed by 
some of the leading journals. Apparently, however, 
it contained little at all interesting either to the anti- 
quarian or scientific man, but was principally taken up 
with showing the prospect of a rapid agricultural 
developement throughout the country. 

Neither were general internal improvements slighted. 
A project was set on foot to avoid the dangerous naviga- 
tion round the Florida Keys by direct transportation 
across the neck of the peninsula — a design that has 
ever been the darling hobby of ambitious Floridians 
since they became members of our confederacy, and 
which at length seems destined to be fulfilled. Now 
railroads, in that day canals were to be the means. 
As early as 1828, General Bernard, who had been 
dispatched for the purpose, had completed two level- 
lings for canal routes, had sketched an accurate map 
on an extended scale, and had laid before the general 
government a report embracing a topographical and 
hydrographical description of the territory, the result 
of his surveys, with remarks on the inland navigation 
of the coast from Tampa to the head of the delta of 
the Mississippi, and the possible and actual improve- 
ments therein. 1 Notwithstanding these magnificent 
preparations, it is unnecessary to add, the canal is 
still unborn. 

One great drawback to the progress of the territory 
was the uncertainty of Land Titles. During the Span- 



1 Message of the President in relation to the Survey of a 
Pvoute for a Canal between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlan- 
tic Ocean ; with the Report of the Board of Internal Improve- 
ment on the same, with a general map annexed, February 28, 
1829. A flowery article of ten pages may be found on this 
in the Southern Review, Vol. "VI., p. 410. 



68 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

ish administration nearly the whole had been parcelled 
out and conferred in grants by the king. Old claims, 
dating back to the British regime, added to the confu- 
sion. Many of both had been sold and resold to both 
Spanish and American citizens. In the Appendix to 
Vignoles, and in Williams' View of West Florida, 
many pages are devoted to this "iveighty and very intri- 
cate subject. Some of these claims were of enormous 
extent. Such was that of Mr. Hackley, which em- 
braced the whole Gulf coast of the peninsula and 
reached many miles inland. This tract had been a 
grant of His Catholic Majesty to the Duke of Alagon, 
and it was an express stipulation on the part of the 
United States, acceded to by the king, that it should 
be annulled. But meanwhile the Duke had sold out 
to Mr. Hackley and others, who claimed that the king 
could not legally dispossess American citizens. A 
pamphlet was published^ containing all the documents 
relating to the question, and the elaborate opinions of 
several leading lawyers, all but one in favor of Mr. 
Hackley. After a protracted suit, the Gordian knot 
was finally severed by an ex post facto decree of His 
Majesty, that a crown grant to a subject was in any 
case inalienable, least of all to a foreigner. 

The work of Col. John Lee Williams just men- 
tioned, ^ though ostensibly devoted to West Florida 



1 Titles and Legal Opinions on Lands in East Florida be- 
longing to Richard S. Hackley, 8vo., Fayetteville, (N. Car.,) 
1826, pp. 71. See the North American Review, Vol. XXIIL, 
p. 432. Hackley's grant is laid down on Williams' Map. 

^ A View of V/est Florida, embracing its Topography, Ge- 
ography, &c., with an Appendix treating of its Antiquities, 
Land Titles, and Canals, and containing a Chart of the Coast, 
a Plan of Pensacola, and the Entrance of the Harbor. 8vo. 
Phila., 1827, pp. 178. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 69 

takes a wider sweep than the title page denotes. Its 
author went to Florida in 1820, and was one of the 
commissioners appointed to locate the seat of govern- 
ment. While busied with this, he was struck with the 
marked deficiency of all the then published maps of 
the country, <^ and for my own satisfaction," he adds, 
<' I made a minute survey of the coast from St. An- 
drew's Bay to the Suwannee, as well as the interior of 
the country in which Tallahassie is situated." A 
letter from Judge Brackenridge, alcalde of St. Augus- 
tine, principally consisting of quotations from Roberts, 
is all that touches on antiquities. Except this, and 
some accounts of the early operations of the Ameri- 
cans in obtaining possession, ?ind the statements con- 
cerning Land Titles, the book is taken up with discus- 
sions of proposed internal improvements of very local 
and ephemeral interest. 

All the details of any value that it contains he 
subsequently incorporated in his Civil and Natural 
History of the Territory, published ten years later. 
Most of the intervening time he spent in arduous 
personal researches ; to quote his own words, " I have 
traversed the country in various directions, and have 
coasted the whole peninsula from Pensacola to St. 
Mary's, examining with minute attention the various 
Keys or Islets on the margin of the coast. I have 
ascended many of the rivers, explored the lagoons and 
bays, traced the ancient improvements, scattered ruins, 
and its natural productions by land and by water." 
Hence the chief value of the work is as a gazetteer. 

1 The Territory of Florida ; or Sketches of the Topography, 
Civil and Natural History of the Country, the Climate and 
the Indian Tribes, from the First Discovery to the Present 
Time. 8vo. New York, 1837. 



70 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

The civil history is a mere compilation, collected with- 
out criticism, and arranged without judgment; an 
entire ignorance of other languages, and the paucity of 
materials in our own, incapacitated Williams from 
achieving anything more. Nor can he claim to be 
much of a naturalist, for the frequent typographical 
errors in the botanical names proclaim him largely 
debtor to others in this department. His style is 
eminently dry and difficult to labor through, and must 
ever confine the History to the shelf as a work of 
reference, and to the closet of the painful student. 
Yet with all its faults — and they are neither few nor 
slight — this is the most complete work ever published 
concerning the territory of Florida ; it is the fruit of 
years of laborious investigation, of absorbing devotion 
to one object, often of keen mental and bodily suffer- 
ing, and will ever remain a witness to the energy and 
zeal of its writer. 

As little is recorded about this author pioneer, I 
may perhaps be excused for turning aside to recall a 
few personal recollections. It had long been my de- 
sire to visit and converse with him about the early 
days of the state, and with this object, on the 9th of 
November, 1856, I stopped at the little town of Pico- 
lati, near which he lived. A sad surprise awaited me; 
he had died on the 7th of the month and had been 
buried the day before my arrival. I walked through 
the woods to his house. It was a rotten, ruinous, 
frame tenement on the banks of the St. Johns, about 
half a mile below the town, fronted by a row of noble 
live oaks and surrounded by the forest. Here the old 
man- — he was over eighty at the time of his death — 
had lived for twenty years almost entirely alone, and 
much of the time in abject poverty. A trader hap- 



LITEKARY HISTORY. 71 

pened to be with him during his last illness, who told 
me some incidents of his history. His mind retained 
its vigor to the last, and within a week of his death he 
was actively employed in various literary avocations, 
among which was the preparation of an improved 
edition of his History, which he had very nearly com- 
pleted. At the very moment the paralytic stroke, 
from which he died, seized him, he had the pen in his 
hand writing a novel, the scene of which was laid in 
China ! His disposition was uncommonly aimable and 
engaging, and so much was he beloved by the Indians, 
that throughout the horrible atrocities of the Seminole 
war, when all the planters had fled or been butchered, 
when neither sex nor age was a protection, when Pico- 
lati was burned and St. Augustine threatened, he con- 
tinued to live unharmed in his old house, though a 
companion was shot dead on the threshold. What 
the savage respected and loved, the civilized man 
thought weakness and despised ; this very goodness of 
heart made him the object of innumerable petty im- 
positions from the low whites, his neighbors. In the 
words of my informant, " he was too good for the 
people of these parts.''' During his lonely old age he 
solaced himself with botany and horticulture, priding 
himself on keeping the best garden in the vicinity. 
<< Come, and I will show you his grave,'' said the 
trader, and added with a touch of feeling I hardly ex- 
pected, (' he left no directions about it, so I made it in 
the spot he used to love the best of all." He took me 
to the south-eastern corner of the neat garden plot. 
A heap of fresh earth with rough, round, pine sticks 
at head and foot, marked the spot. It was a solemn 
and impressive moment. The lengthening shadows of 
the forest crept over us, the wind moaned in the pines 



72 FLOEIDIAN PENINSULA. 

and whistled drearily througli the sere grass, and the 
ripples of the river broke monotonously on the shore. 
All trace of the grave will soon be obliterated, the 
very spot forgotten, and the garden lie a waste, but 
the results of his long and toilsome life " in books re- 
corded" will live when the marbles and monumental 
brasses of many of his cotemporaries shall be no more. 

The next event that attracted general attention to 
Florida was the bloody and disastrous second Seminole 
war, which for deeds of atrocious barbarity, both on 
the part of the whites and red men, equals, if it does 
not surpass, any conflict that has ever stained the soil 
of our country. 

The earliest work relative to it was published anony- 
mously in 1836, by an officer in the army.^ He gives 
an impartial account of the causes that gave rise to the 
war, the manifold insults and aggressions that finally 
goaded the Indians to desperation, and the incidents 
of the first campaign undertaken to punish them for 
their contumacy. It is well and clearly written, and 
coming from the pen of a participant in many of the 
scenes described, merits a place in the library of the 
historian. 

The year subsequent, Mr. M. M. Cohen of Charles- 
ton, issued a notice of the proceedings in the penin- 
sula.2 He was an ^'officer of the left wing," and had 
spent about five months with the army, during which 
time it marched from St. Augustine to Volusia, thence 
to Tampa, and back again to St. Augustine. The 

1 The War in Florida ; being an Exposition of its Causes 
and an accurate History of the Campaigns of Generals 
Gaines, Clinch and Scott. By a late Staif Officer. 8vo. Bal- 
timore, 1836, pp. 184. 

2 History of the Florida Campaigns. 12mo. Charleston, 
1837. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 73 

author tells us in his Preface, " our book has been put 
to press in less than thirty days from its being under- 
taken/' a statement no one will be inclined to doubt, 
as it is little more than a farrago of vapid puns and 
stale witticisms, hurriedly scraped together into a slim 
volume, and connected by a slender string of facts. 
An account of the imprisonment of Oceola and the 
enslavement of his wife, has been given by the same 
writer,^ and has received praise for its accuracy. 

In 1836, when the war was at its height, an Indian boy 
was taken prisoner by a party of American soldiers near 
Newnansville. Contrary to custom his life was spared, 
and the next year he was handed over to the care of an 
English gentleman then resident in the country. From 
his own account, drawn from him after long persuasion, 
his name was Nikkanoche, his father was the unhappy 
Econchatti-mico, and consequently he was nephew to 
the famous chief Oceola, (Ass-se-he-ho-lar, Rising Sun, 
Powell.) His guardian removed with him to England 
in 1840, and the year after his arrival there, published 
an account of the parentage, early days, and nation of 
his ward,3 the young Prince of Econchatti, as he was 
styled. It forms an interesting and pleasant little 
volume, though I do not know what amount of reliance 
can be placed on the facts asserted. 

An excellent article on the war, which merits care- 
ful reading from any one desirous of thoroughly sifting 
the question, may be found in the fifty-fourth volume 
of the North American Review, (1842,) prepared with 

1 In the Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine. (Giddings, 
Exiles of Florida, p. 99, note.) 

2 A Narrative of the Early Days and Remembrances of 
Oceola Nikkanoche, Prince of Econchatti, a young Seminole 
Indian. Written by his Guardian. 8vo. London, 1841, 
pp. 228. 

1 



74 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

reference to Mr. Horace Everett's remarks on the Array 
Appropriation Bill of July 14, 1840, and to a letter 
from the Secretary of War on the expenditure for sup- 
porting hostilities in Florida. 

Though the above memoirs are of use in throwing 
additional light on some points, and settling certain 
mooted questions, the standard work of reference on 
the Florida war is the very able, accurate, and gene- 
rally impartial History,^ of Captain John T. Sprague, 
himself a participant in many of its scenes, and oflSci- 
ally concerned in its prosecution. Few of our local 
histories rank higher than this. With a praiseworthy 
patience of research he goes at length into its causes, 
commencing with the cession in 1821, details minutely 
its prosecution till the close in December, 1845, and 
paints with a vigorous and skillful pen many of those 
thrilling adventures and affecting passages that marked 
its progress. A map of the seat of war that accom- 
panies it, drawn up with care, and embracing most 
of the geographical discoveries made by the various 
divisions of the army, adds to its value. 

Commencing his history with the cession. Captain 
Sprague does not touch on the earlier troubles with 
the Seminoles. These were never properly handled 
previous to the late work of the Hon. J. R. Giddings, 
entitled, " The Exiles of Florida.'' « These so-called 
exiles were runaway slaves from the colonies of South 
Carolina and Georgia, who, quite early in the last 

1 The Origin, Progress, and Conclusion of the Florida War. 
8vo. New York, 1848. 

2 The Exiles of Florida; or, the Crimes Committed by our 
Government against the Maroons, who fled from South Caro- 
lina and other Slave States, seeking Protection under Spanish 
Laws. 8vo. Columbus, (Ohio,) 1858. 



LITERAEY HISTORY. 75 

century, sought an asylum in the Spanish possessions, 
formed separate settlements, and, increased by fresh 
refugees, became ever after a fruitful source of broils 
and quarrels between the settlers of the rival pro- 
vinces. As they were often protected, and by mar- 
riage and situation became closely connected with the 
Lower Creeks, they were generally identified with them 
in action under the common name of Seminoles. Thus 
the history of one includes that of the other. The 
profound acquaintance with the transactions of our 
government acquired by Mr. Giddings during a long 
and honorable public service, render his work an able 
plea in the cause of the people whose wrongs and 
sufferings have enlisted his sympathy; but unques- 
tionably the fervor of his views prevents him from 
doing full justice to their adversaries. He attaches 
less weight than is right to the strict legality of most 
of the claims for slaves; and forgets to narrate the 
inhuman cruelties, shocking even to the red men, 
wreaked by these maroons on their innocent captives, 
which palliate, if they do not excuse, the rancorous 
hatred with which they were pursued by the whites. 
Including their history from their origin till 1853, the 
second Seminole war occupies much of his attention, 
and the treatment both of it and the other topics, 
prove the writer a capable historian, as well as an 
accomplished statesman. 

It is unnecessary to specify the numerous reports of 
the ofl&cers, the official correspondence, the speeches of 
members of Congress, and other public writings that 
illustrate the history of the war, which are contained 
in the Executive Documents. But I should not omit 
to mention that the troubles in Florida during the last 
few years have given occasion to the publication of 



76 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

the only at all accurate description of the southern 
extremity of the peninsula in existence.^ It was 
issued for the use of the army, from inedited reports 
of officers during the second Seminole war, and lays 
down and describes topographically nine routes to and 
from the principal military posts south of Tampa Bay. 

The works relating to St. Augustine next claim our 
attention. Of late years this has become quite a favor- 
ite rendezvous for casual tourists, invalids from the 
north, magazine writers, et id omne genus, whence to 
indite letters redolent of tropic skies, broken ruins, 
balmy moonlight, and lustrous-eyed beauties. Though 
it would be lost time to enumerate these, yet among 
books of general travel, there are one or two of interest 
in this connection. Among these is an unpretending 
little volume that appeared anonymously at New York 
in 1839.2 The author, a victim of asthma, had visited 
both St. Augustine and Key West in the spring of that 
year. Though written in a somewhat querulous tone, 
it contains some serviceable hints to invalids expecting 
to spend a winter in warmer climes. 

Neither ought we to pass by in silence the Floridian 
notes of the "Hon. Miss Amelia M. Murray,'^ ^ who, 
it will be recollected, a few years since took a con- 
temptuous glance at our country from Maine to Lousi- 
ana, weighed it in the balance of her judgment, and 
pronounced it wanting in most of the elements of 

' Memoir to accompany a Military Map of Florida South 
of Tampa Bay, compiled by Lieutenant J. C. Ives, Topographi- 
cal Engineer. War Department, April, 1856. 8vo. New 
York, 1856, pp. 42. 

2 A Winter in Florida and the West Indies. 12mo. New 
York, 1839. 

3 Letters from the United States, Canada and Cuba. New 
York, 1856. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 77 

civilization. She went on a week's scout into Flori- 
da, found the charges exorbitant, the government 
wretchedly conducted, and the people boors; was 
deeply disappointed with St. Augustine and harbor 
because an island shut out the view of the ocean, and 
at Silver Spring found nothing more worthy of her 
pen than the anti-slavery remark of an inn-keeper, — 
who has himself assured me that she entirely miscon- 
strues even that. 

Two works devoted to the Ancient City, as its in- 
habitants delight to style it, have been published. One 
of these is a pleasant little hand-book, issued some 
ten years since by the Rev. Mr. Sewall, Episcopalian 
minister there.^ He prepared it "to meet the wants 
of those who may desire to learn something of the 
place in view of a sojourn, or who may have already 
come hither in search of health," and it is well calcu- 
lated for this purpose. A view of the town from the 
harbor, (sold also separately,) and sketches of the most 
remarkable buildings increase its usefulness. A curious 
incident connected with this book is worth relating for 
the light it throws on the character of the so-called 
Minorcans of St. Augustine. In one part Mr. Sewall 
had inserted a passage somewhat depreciatory of this 
class. When the edition arrived and this became gene- 
rally known, they formed a mob, surrounded the store 
where it was deposited, and could only be restrained from 
destroying the whole by a promise that the obnoxious 
leaf sould be cut from every volume in the package. 
This was done, and the copy I purchased there accord- 
ingly lacks the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth pages. 

^ Sketches of St. Augustine, "with a View of its History and 
Advantages as a Resort for Invalids. By R. K. Sewall. 8vo. 
New York, 1848, pp. 69. 



78 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

An action on their part that calls to mind the ancient 
saw, ^' 'Tis the tight shoe that pinches/' 

Another and later work that enters into the subject 
more at length, has recently appeared from the com- 
petent pen of Gr. R. Fairbanks,^ a resident of the 
spot, and a close student of the chronicles of the old 
colony. The rise and progress of the settlements 
both French and Spanish are given in detail and with 
general accuracy, and though his account of the former 
is not so finished nor so thoroughly digested as that of 
Sparks, consisting of little more than extracts linked 
together, we have no other work in our language so 
full on the doings of the subjects of His Catholic 
Majesty in Florida, and the gradual growth of the 
Ancient City. It thus fills up a long standing hiatus 
in our popular historical literature. 

Numerous articles on Florida have appeared in 
various American periodicals, but so few of any value 
that as a class they do not merit attention. Most of 
them are flighty descriptions of scenery, second-hand 
morsels of history, and empty political disquisitions. 
Some of the best I have referred to in connection 
with the points they illustrate, while the Index of Mr. 
Poole, a work invaluable to American scholars, obvi- 
ates the necessity of a more extended reference. 

Those that have appeared in the serials of Europe, 
on the other hand, as they mostly contain original 
matter, so they must not be passed over so lightly. 

Though not strictly included among them, the arti- 
cle on Florida prepared by Mr. Warden for that por- 
tion of L'Art de Verifier les Dates called Historical 

'• The History and Antiquities of the City of St. Augustine, 
Florida, conaprising some of the most Interesting Portions of 
the Early History of Florida. 8vo. New York, 1858. 



LITEEARY HISTORY. 79 

Chronology of America, will come under our notice 
here. In a compendium parading such a pretentious 
title as this we have a right to expect at least an aver- 
age accuracy, but this portion bears on its face obvious 
marks of haste, negligence, and a culpable lack of 
criticism, and is redeemed by nothing but a few ex- 
cerpts from rare books. 

Little attention has ever been paid to the natural 
history of the country, least of all by Americans. The 
best observer of late years has been M. de Castelnau, 
who, sent out by the Academic des Sciences to collect 
and observe in this department, spent in Middle 
Florida one of the seven years he passed in America. 
While the Seminole war was raging, and a mutual 
slaughter giving over the peninsula once more to its 
pristine wilderness, in the gloomy hammocks of the 
Suwannee and throughout the lofty forests that stretch 
between this river and the Apalachicola, this natural- 
ist was pursuing his peaceful avocation undisturbed 
by the discord around him. In April, 1842, after 
his return, he submitted to the Academy a memoir on 
this portion of his investigations. ^ It is divided into 
three sections, the first a geographical description, the 
second treating of the climate, hygienic condition, geo- 
logy, and agriculture, while the third is devoted to 
anthropology, as exhibited here in its three phases, 
the red, the white, and the black man. In one pas- 
sage,i speaking of the history of the country, this 
author remarks that M. Lakanal " has, during his long 
sojourn at Mobile, just on the confines of Florida, 
collected numerous documents relative to the latter 

1 Memoire sur la Floride du Milieu, Comptes-Rcndus, T. 
XIV., p. 518; T. XV., p. 1045. 
1 Comptes Rendus, XV., p. 1047. 



80 FLOEIDIAN PENINSULA. 

country; but the important labors of our venerable 
colleague have not yet been published." As far as I 
can learn, these doubtless valuable additions to our 
history are still inedited. 

The subjoined list of some other articles published 
in Europe is extracted from Dr. W. Koner's excellent 
catalogue.* 

1832. De Mobile, Excursion dans V Alabama et les 
riorides. Revue des Deux Mondes, T. I., p. 128. 

1835. Beitrage zur Naheren Kenntniss von Florida. 
Anal, der Erdkunde, B. XII., s. 336. 

1836. Castelnau, Note sur la Source de la Riviere 
de Walkulla dans la Floride. Soc. de Geographic, II 
ser., T. XL, p. 242. 

1839. David, Aper§u Statistique sur la Floride Soc. 
de Geog., II, ser., Tom. XIV., p. 144. 

1842. Castelnau, Note de deux Itineraires de 
Charleston a Tallahassie. Soc. de Geog. T. XVIII, 
p. 241. 

1843. Castelnau, Essai sur la Floride du Milieu. 
Annales de Voyages, T. IV, p. 129. 

1843. De Qaatrefages, La Floride. Revue des Deux 
Mondes, nouv. ser., T. I, p. 774. 



§ 7. — Maps and Charts. 

Though the need of a good history of the most im- 
portant maps and charts of America, enriched by 
copies of the most interesting, cannot but have been 
felt by every one who has spent much time in the 
study of its first settlement and growth, such a work 

1 Repertorium ueber^die auf dem Gebiete der Geschichte 

erscheiaenen Aufslitze,* u. s. w. Berlin, 1852. 



LITER AEY HISTORY. 81 

still remains a desideratum in our literature. As a 
trifling aid to any who may hereafter engage in an 
undertaking of this kind, and as an assistance to the 
future historian of that portion of our country, I add 
a brief notice of those that best illustrate the progress 
of geographical knowledge respecting Florida. 

On the earliest extant sketch of the New World — , 
that made by Juan de Cosa in 1500 — , a continuous 
coast line running east and northeast connects the 
southern continent to the shores of the 3Iar descuhi- 
erta por Iwjleses in the extreme north. No signs of a 
peninsula are visible. 

Eight year later, on the Universalior cogniti Orhis 
Tabula of Johannes Kuysch found in the geography 
of Ptolemy printed at Eome under the supervision of 
Marcus Beneventanus and Johannes Cotta, the whole 
of North America is included in a small body of land 
marked Terra Nova ^r Baccalauras,^ joined to the 
countries of Gog and Magog and the desertum Loh in 
Asia. A cape stretching out towards Cuba is called 
(Jabo de Portugesi.^ 

This brings us to the enigmatical map in the mag- 
nificent folio edition of Ptolemy, printed at Venice in 
1513. On this, North America is an oblong parallelo- 
gram of land with an irregularly shaped portion pro- 
jecting from its south-eastern extremity, maintaining 
with general correctness the outlines and direction of 
the peninsula of Florida. A number of capes and 
rivers are marked along its shores, some of the names 
evidently Portugese, others Spanish. Now as Leon 

1 Bacalaos, the Spanish word for codfish. 

2 See A. V. Humboldt's Introduction to Dr. T. W. Ghillany's 
Geschichte des Seefahrers Ritter Martin Behaim, s. 2 — 5, in 
which work these two maps are given. 



82 FLOEIDIAN PENINSULA. 

jBrst saw Florida in 1512, and the report of his dis- 
covery did not reach Europe for years, whence came 
this knowledge of the northern continent ? Santareni 
and Ghillany both confess that there were voyages to 
the New World undertaken by Portuguese in the first 
decade of the century, about which all else but the 
mere fact of their existence have escaped the most 
laborious investigations; hence, probably to one of 
these unknown navigators we are to ascribe the honor 
of being the first discoverer of Florida, and the source 
of the information displayed by the editors of this 
copy of Ptolemy.i 

The first outline of the coast drawn from known 
observation is the Traza de las Castas de Tierra Firme 
y de las Tierras NuevaSj accompanying the royal grant 
of those parts to Francisco de Garayin the year 1521. 
It has been published by Navarrete, and by Bucking- 
ham Smith. Contrary to th^ usual opinion of the 
day, which was not proved incorrect till the voyages of 
Francesco Fernandez de Cordova (1517), and more 
conclusively by that of Estevan Gomez (1525), the 
peninsula is attached to the mainland. This and other 
reasons render it probable that it was drawn up under 
the supervision of Anton de Alaminos, pilot of Leon 
on his first voyage, who ever denied the existence of 
an intervening strait.^ I cannot agree with Mr. Smith 
that it points to any prior discoveries unknown to us. 

1 Many of the names on this map are also on the land called 
Terra de Cuba, north-west of the island Isabella, Cuba proper, 
on the globe of Johann Schoner, Nureraburg, 1520. A copy 
of a portion of the globe is given by Ghillany in the work just 
mentioned. For an i-nspection of the original maps of Ptole- 
my of 1508 and 1513, I am indebted to the kindness of Peter 
Force, of Washington. 

1 Otros conocieron ser tierra firme ; y de este parecer fue 



LITEEAEY HISTORY. 88 

On some early maps, as one in the quarto geography 
of Ptolemy of 1525, the region of Florida is marked 
Parias. This name, originally given by Columbus to 
an island of the West Indian archipelago, and so laid 
down on the " figura 6 pintura de la tierra,'' which 
he forwarded to Ferdinand the Catholic in 1499,* was 
quite wildly applied by subsequent geographers to 
Peru, to the region on the shore of the Caribbean Sea, 
to the whole of South America, to the southern ex- 
tremity of North America where Nicaragua now is, 
and finally to the peninsula of Florida. 

We have seen that early maps prove De Leon was 
not, as is commonly supposed, the first to see and 
name the Land of Flowers (Terra Florida) ; neither 
did his discoveries first expand a knowledge of it in 
Europe. Probably all that was known by professed 
geographers regarding it for a long time after was the 
product of later explorations, for not till forty years 
from the date of his first voyage was there a chart 
published containing the name he applied to the penin- 
sula. This is the one called Novae Insulae, in the 
Geographia Claudii Ptolemaei, Basileae, 1552. ^ 

The only other delineation of the country dating 
from the sixteenth century that deserves notice — for 
those of Herrera are quite worthless — is that by 
Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, published in the sec- 
ond volume of De Bry, which is curious as the only one 
left by the French colonists, though geographically 

siempre Anton de Alaminos, Piloto, que fue con Juan Ponce. 
Barcia, Introduccion al Ensayo Chronologico. 

1 Herrera, Dec. I., Lib. I., cap. iii., p. 91. 

2 For a description of this and other maps of » America 
during the sixteenth century, see Dr. Ghillany, ubi supra, p. 
68, Anmerk. 17. 



84 FLOEIDIAN PENINSULA. 

not more correct than others of the day. Indeed, all 
of them portray the country very imperfectly. Gener- 
ally it is represented as a triangular piece of land 
more or less irregular, indented by bays,- divided into 
provinces Cautio, Calos, Tegeste, and others, names 
which are often applied to the whole peninsula. The 
southern extremity is sometimes divided into numerous 
islands by arms of the sea, and the St. Johns, when 
down at all, rises from mountains to the north, and 
runs in a southeasterly direction, nearly parallel with 
the rivers supposed to have been discovered by Ribaut, 
(La Somme, La Loire, &c.) 

Now this did not at all keep pace with the geogra- 
phical knowledge common to both French and Spanish 
towards the close of this period. The colonists under 
Laudonniere and afterwards Aviles himself, ascended 
the St. Johns certainly as far as Lake G-eorge, and 
knew of a great interior lake to the south; Pedro 
Menendez Marquez, the nephew and successor of the 
latter, made a methodical survey of the coast from 
Pensacola to near the Savannah river (from Santa 
Maria de Galve to Santa Helena;) and English navi- 
gators were acquainted with its general outline and 
the principal points along the shore. 

Yet during the whole of the next century I am not 
aware of a single map that displays any signs of im- 
provement, or any marks of increased information. 
That inserted by De Laet in his description of the 
New World, called Florida et Regiones Vicinse, (1633,) 
is noteworthy only because it is one of the first, if not 
the first, to locate along his supposed route the native 
towns and provinces met with by De Soto. Their 
average excellence may be judged from those inserted 
in the elephantine work of Ogilby on America, (1671,) 



LITERARY HISTORY. 85 

and still better in its Dutch and German paraphrases. 
The Totius Americas Descriptio, by Gerhard a Schagen 
in the latter, is a meritorious production for that age. 

No sooner, however, had the English obtained a 
firm footing in Carolina and Georgia, and the French 
in Louisiana, than a more accurate knowledge of their 
Spanish neighbors was demanded and acquired. The 
« New Map of y« North Parts of America claimed by 
France under y® name of Louisiana, Mississippi, Cana- 
da, and New France, with y° adjoining Territories of 
England and Spain,'' (London, 1720,) indicates con- 
siderable progress, and is memorable as the first on 
which the St. Johns is given its true course, information 
about which its designer Herman Moll, obtained from 
the ''Journals and Original Draughts" of Captain Nairn. 
His map of the West Indies contains a " Draught of St. 
Augustine and its Harbour," with the localities of the 
castle, town, monastery, Indian church, &c., carefully 
pointed out; previous to it, two plans of this city had 
appeared, one, the earliest extant, engraved to accom- 
pany the narrative of Drake's Voyage and Descent in 
1586, and another, I know not by whose hand, repre- 
senting its appearance in 1665.* 

On the former of these maps, "The South Bounds 
of Carolina," are placed nearly a degree south of St. 
Augustine, thus usurping all the best portion of the 
Spanish territory. This is but an example of the 
great confusion that prevailed for a long time as to 
the extent of the region called Florida. The early 

1 See G. R. Fairbanks, History and Antiquities of St. Au- 
gustine, pp. 113, 130, for descriptions of the two latter. A 
"Geog. Description of Florida" is said to have appeared at 
London, in 1665. Possibly it is the account of Captain Davis' 
attack upon St. Augustine. 



86 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

writers frequently embraced under this name the whole 
of North America above Mexico, distinguishing, as 
Herrera and Torquemada, between Florida explored 
and unexplored, (Florida conocida, Florida ignorada,) 
or as Christian Le Clerq, between Spanish and French 
and English Florida. Taking it in this extended sense, 
Barcia includes in his Chronology (Ensayo Cronologico 
de la Florida) not only the operations of the Spanish 
and English on the east coast of the United States, 
but also those of the French in Canada and the expedi- 
tions of Vasquez Coronado and others in New Mexico. 
Nicolas le Fer, on the other hand, ignoring the name 
altogether, styled the whole region Louisiana, (1718,) 
while the English, not to be outdone in national rapa- 
city, laid claim to an equal amount as Carolina. De 
Laet^ was the first geographer who confined the name 
to the peninsula. In 1651 Spain relinquished her 
claims to all land north of 36° 30' north lat., but it 
was not till the Definitive Treaty of Peace of 1763, 
that any political attempt was made to define its exact 
boundaries, and then, not with such entire success, but 
room was left for subsequent disputes between our 
government and Spain, only finally settled by the sur- 
veys of Ellicott at the close of the century. 

Neither Guillaume de Tlsle nor M. Bellin, both of 
whom etched maps of Florida many years after the 
publication of that of Moll, seems to have been aware 
of his previous labors, or to have taken advantage of 
his more extensive information. In the gigantic Atlas 
Nbuveau of the former, (Amsterdam, 1739,) are two 
maps of Florida, evidently by different hands. The 
one, Tabula GeograpMca Mexico et Floridse, gives toler- 

1 Descriptio Indise Occidentalis, Lib. IV., cap. xiii. (Ant- 
werpt, 1633.) 



LITEEARY HISTORY. 87 

ably well the general contour of the peninsula, and 
situates the six provinces of Apalacha mentioned by 
Bristock ; the other, Carte de la Louisiane et du Cours 
du 31issis8ippi, is an enlarged copy with additions of 
that published five years previous in the fifth volume of 
the Voyages au Nord, on which is given the route of De 
Soto. Bellin's Carte des Cosfes de la Nouvelle France 
suivant les prew?'eres Decouvertes is found in Charle- 
voix^s Nouvelle France and is of little worth. 

The map of "Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama 
Islands," that accompanies Catesby's Natural History 
of those regions, is not so accurate as we might ex- 
pect from the opportunities he enjoyed. The peninsula 
is conceived as a nearly equilateral triangle projecting 
about two hundred and sixty miles towards the south. 
Like other maps of this period, it derives its chief 
value from locating Indian and Spanish towns. 

The dangerous navigation of the Keys had neces- 
sitated their examination at an early date. In 1718, 
Domingo Gonzales Carranza surveyed them, as well as 
some portion of the northern coast, with considerable 
care. His notes remained in manuscript, however, till 
1740, when falling into the hands of an Englishman, 
they were translated and brought out at London under 
the title, "A Geographical Description of the Spanish 
West Indies." But how inefl&cient the knowledge of 
these perilous reefs remained for many years is evident 
on examining the marine chart of the Gulf of Mexico, 
by Tomas Lopez and Juan de la Cruz, in 1755. The 
seafaring English, when they took possession of the 
country, made it their first duty to get the most exact 
possible charts of these so important points. No sooner 
had the treaty been signed than the Board of Admiralty 
dispatched G. Gauld, a capable and energetic engineer 



OO FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

to survey the coasts, islands, and keys, east and south 
of Pensacola. In this employment he spent nearly 
twenty years, from 1764 to 1781, when he was taken 
prisoner by the Spanish, and shortly afterwards died. 
The results were not made public till 1790, when they 
appeared under the supervision of Dr. Lorimer, and, 
in connection with the Gulf Pilot of Bernard Romans, 
and the sailing directions of De Brahm, both likewise 
engineers in the British service, employed at the same 
time as Gauld, constituted for half a century the chief 
foundation for the nautical charts of this entrance to 
the Gulf. 

Among the writers of the last century who did good 
service to American geography, Thomas Jefferys, Geo- 
grapher to his Majesty, deserves honorable mention. 
Besides his more general labors, he edited, in 1763, the 
compilation of Roberts, and some years after the Jour- 
nal of the elder Bartram ; to both he added a general 
map of the region under consideration, ^'collected and 
digested with great care and labor from a number of 
French and Spanish charts," taken on prize ships, cor- 
rect enough as far as regards^the shore, but the interior 
very defective; a plan of Tampa Bay; and one of St. Au- 
gustine and harbor, giving the depth of water in each, 
and on the latter showing the site of the sea wall. 

Besides those in the Atlas of Popple, of 1772, the 
following maps, published during the last century, may 
be consulted with advantage : 

Carolinae, Floridaa nec-non Insularum Bajamensium 
delineatio, Nuremberg, 1775. 

Tabulae Mexicanse et Floridae, terrarum Anglicaruni, 
anteriarum Americse insularum. Amstelodami, apud 
Petrum Schenck, circ. 1775. 

A Map of the Southern British Colonies, containing 



LITERARY HISTORY. 89 

the Seat of War in N. and S. Carolina, E. and W. 
Florida. By Bernard Romans. London, 1776. 

Plan of Amelia Island and Bar, surveyed by Jacob 
Blaney in 1775. London, 1776. 

Plan of Amelia Island and Bar. By Wm. Fuller. 
Edited by Thomas Jefferys. London, 1776. 

Piano de la Ciudad y Puerto de San Augustin de la 
Florida. Por Tomas Lopez. Madrid, 1783. 

Nothing was done of any importance in this depart- 
ment during the second Spanish supremacy, but as 
soon as the country became a portion of the United 
States, the energy both of private individuals and the 
government rapidly increased the fund of geographical 
knowledge respecting it. 

The first map published was that of Vignoles, who, 
an engineer himself, and deriving his facts from a per- 
sonal survey of the whole eastern coast from St. Marys 
river to Cape Florida, makes a very visible improvement 
on his predecessors. 

The canal contemplated at this period from the St. 
Johns or St. Marys to the Gulf gave occasion to level- 
lings across the peninsula at two points, valuable for 
the hypsometrical data they furnish. Annexed to the 
report (February, 1829,) is a <'.Map of the Territory of 
Florida from its northern boundary to lat. 27° 30' N. 
connected with the delta of the Mississippi," giving 
the features of the country and separate plans of the 
harbors and bays. 

The same year J. R. Searcy issued a map of the 
territory, '< constructed principally from authentic 
documents in the land office at Tallahassie,'' favorably 
mentioned at the time.* 



* Southern Review, Vol. VI., p. 410, seq. 
8* 



90 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA.' 

The map prefixed to his View of West Florida, and 
subsequently to his later work, by Colonel Williams, 
largely based on his own researches, is a good exposi- 
tion of all certainly known at that period about the 
geography of the country. Cape Romans is here first 
distinguished as an island; Sharks river is omitted; 
and Lake Myaco or Okee-chobee is not down, « sim- 
ply/' says the author, " because I can find no reason 
for believing its existence I" Unparalleled as such an 
entire ignorance of a body of water with a superficies 
of twelve hundred square miles, in the midst of a State 
settled nigh half a century before any other in our 
Union, which had been governed for years by English, 
by Spanish, and by Americans, may be, it well illus- 
trates the impassable character of those vast swamps and 
dense cypresses known as the Everglades; an impene- 
trability so complete as almost to justify the assertion 
of the State engineer, made as late as 1855: <' These 
lands are now, and will continue to be, nearly as much 
unknown as the interior of Africa or the mountain 
sources of the Amazon." * 

What little we know of this Terra Incognita, is de- 
rived from the notes of officers in the Indian wars, and 
the maps drawn up for the use of the army. Among 
these, that issued by the War Department at the re- 
quest of General Taylor, in 1837, embracing the whole 
peninsula, that prefixed to Sprague's History, which 
gives the northern portion with much minuteness, 
and the later one, in 1856, of the portion south of 
Tampa Bay, are the most important. The latter gives 
the topography of the Everglades and Big Cypress as 
far as ascertained. 

1 Report of F. L. Dancy, State Engineer and Geologist, in 
the Message of the Governor of Florida, with Accompanying 
Documents, for 1855, App., p. 9. 



LITERARY HISTORY. 91 

While annual explorations are thus throwing more 
and more light on the interior of the peninsula, the 
United States Coast Survey, now in operation, will 
definitely settle all kindred questions relative to its 
shores, harbors, and islands ; and thus we may look 
forward to a not distant day when its geographical 
history will be consummated. 



92 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE APALACHES. 

Derivation of the name. — Earliest notices of. — Visited and 
described by Bristock in 1653. — Authenticity of his narra- 
tive. — Subsequent history and final extinction. 

Among the aboriginal tribes of the United States 
perhaps none is more enigmatical than the Apalaches. 
They are mentioned as an important nation by many 
of the early French and Spanish travellers and histo- 
rians, their name is preserved by a bay and river on 
the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and by the great 
eastern coast range of mountains, and has been applied 
by ethnologists to a family of cognate nations that 
found their hunting-grounds from the Mississippi to 
the Atlantic and from the Ohio river to the Florida 
Keys ; yet, strange to say, their own race and place 
have been but guessed at. Intimately connected both 
by situation and tradition with the tribes of the 
Floridian peninsula, an examination of the facts per- 
taining to their history and civilization is requisite to 
a correct knowledge of the origin and condition of the 
latter. 

The orthography of the name is given variously by 
the older writers, Apahlahche, Abolachi, Apeolatei, 
Appallatta, &c., and very frequently without the first 
letter, Palaxy, Palatcy. Daniel Coxe, indeed, fancifully 
considered this first vowel the Arabic article a, a7, pre- 



THE APAL ACHES. 93, 

fixed by the Spaniards to the native word.' Its deri- 
vation has been a questio vexata among Indianologists ; 
Heckewelder^ identified it with Lenape or Wapanaki, 
" which name the French in the south as easily cor- 
rupted into Apalaches as in the north to Abenakis/^ 
and other writers have broached equally loose hypothe- 
sis. Adair^ mentions a Chikasah town, Palacheho, 
evidently from the same root ; but it is not from this 
tongue nor any of its allies, that we must explain its 
meaning, but rather consider it an indication of ancient 
connections with the southern continent, and in itself 
a pure Carib word. Apdh'che in the Tamanaca dialect 
of the Guaranay stem on the Orinoco signifies man* 
and the earliest application of the name in the north- 
ern continent was as a title of the chief of a country, 
Vhomme par excellences^ and hence, like very many 
other Indian tribes (Apaches, Lenni Lenape, Illinois,) 
his subjects assumed by eminence the proud appellation 
of The Men. How this foreign word came to be im- 
ported will be considered hereafter. Among the tribes 
that made up the confederacy, probably only one par- 
took of the warring and energetic blood of the Caribs j 
or it may have been assumed in emulation of a famous 
neighbor ] or it may have been a title of honor derived 

1 A Description of the Province of Carolina, p. 2, London, 
1727. 

* Trans. Hist, and Lit. Com. of the Am. Phil. Soc, Vol. 
L, p. 113. 

3 Hist, of the American Indians, p. 353. 

4 Gilii' Saggio di Storia Americana, Tomo III., p. 375. 

5 Rex qui in hisce Montibus habitabat, Ao. 1562, dicabatur 
Apalatcy; ideoque ipsi monies eodem nomine vocautur, is 
written on the map of the country in Dapper's Neue und IFn- 
bekante Welt (Amsterdam, 1673,) probably on the authority 
of Ribaut. 



94 FLORIDIAN PEXIN-SULA. 

from the esoteric language of a foreign priesthood, in- 
stances of which are not rare among the aborigines. 

In the writings of the first discoverers they uni- 
formly hold a superior position as the most polished, 
the most valorous, and the most united tribe in the 
region where they dwelt. The fame of their intre- 
pidity reached to distant nations. " Keep on, robbers 
and traitors," cried the Indians near the Withlacooche 
to the soldiers of De Soto, '^ in Apalache you will re- 
ceive that chastisement your cruelty deserves." When 
they arrived at this redoubted province they found 
cultivated fields stretching on either hand, bearing 
plentiful crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, cucumbers, 
and plums,^ whose possessors, a race large in stature, 
of great prowess, and delighting in war, inhabited 
numerous villages containing from fifty to three hun- 
dred spacious and commodious dwellings, well pro- 
tected against hostile incursions. The French colo- 
nists heard of them as distinguished for power and 
wealth, having good store of gold, silver, and pearls, 
and dwelling near lofty mountains to the north ; and 
Fontanedo, two years a prisoner in their power, lauds 
them as ^' les meilleurs Indiens de la Flo7nde," and 
describes their province as stretching far northward to 
the snow-covered mountains of Onagatano abounding 
in precious metals.^ 

About a century subsequent to these writers, we 
find a very minute and extraordinary account of a 

1 The plums mentioned by these writers were probably the 
fruit of the Prunus Clncasaw. This was not an indigenous 
tree, but was cultivated by the Southern tribes. During his 
travels, the botanist Bartram never found it wild in the 
forests, *' but always in old deserted Indian plantations." 
(Travels, p. 38.) 

^ See Appendix III. 



THE APALACHES. 95 

nation called Apalachites, indebted for its preservation 
principally to the work of the Abbe Rochefort. It 
has been usually supposed a creation of his own fertile 
brain, but a careful study of the subject has given me 
a different opinion. The original sources of his in- 
formation may be entirely lost, but that they actually 
existed can bo proved beyond reasonable doubt. They 
were a series of ephemeral publications by an " En- 
glish gentleman" about 1656, whose name is variously 
spelled Bristol, Bristok, Brigstock, and Bristock, the 
latter being probably the correct orthography. He 
had spent many years in the West Indies and North 
America, was conversant with several native tongues, 
and had visited Apalacha in 1653. Besides the above- 
mentioned fragmentary notes, he promised a complete 
narrative of his residence and journeys in the New 
World, but apparently never fulfilled his intention. 
Versions of his account are found in various writers of 
the age. The earliest is given by Rochefort,^ and was 
translated with the rest of the work of that author by 
Davies,^ who must have consulted the original tract of 
Bristock as he adds particulars not found in the Abbe's 
history. Others are met with in the writings of the 
Geographus Ordinarius, Nicolas Sanson d' Abbeville,^ 
in the huge tomes of Ogilby"* and his high and low 

^ Histoire Naturelle et Morale des Illes Antilles de I'Ame- 
rique, Liv. II,, pp. 331-353. Rotterdam, 1658. 

'^ History of the Caribby Islands, London, 1666. 

^ Geograplna Exactissima, oder Beschreibung des 4 Theil 
der ganzen Welt mit Geograpbischen und Historischen Rela- 
tionen, Franckfort am Mayn, 1679. This is a German ti-ans- 
lation of D'Abbeville's geographical essays. I have not been 
able to learn when the last part, -which contains Bristock's 
narrative, was published in French. 

4 America. London, 1671. 



96 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

Dutch paraphrasers Arnoldus Montanusi and Oliver 
Dapper," in Oldmixon's history,3 quite fully in the 
later compilation that goes under the name of Baum- 
garten's History of America,^ and in our own days has 
been adverted to by the distinguished Indianologist 
H. R. Schoolcraft in more than one of his works. It 
consists of two parts, the one treating of the tradi- 
tions, the other of the manners and customs of the 
Apalachites. In order to place the subject in the 
clearest light I shall insert a brief epitome of both. 

The Apalachites inhabited the region called Apa- 
lacha between 33° 25' and 37° north latitude. By 
tradition and language they originated from northern 
Mexico, where similar dialects still existed.^ The 
Cofachites were a more southern nation, scattered at 
first over the vast plains and morasses to the south 
along the Gulf of Mexico (Theomi), but subsequently 
having been reduced by the former nation, they set- 
tled a district called Amana, near the mountains of 
Apalacha, and from this circumstance received the 
name Caraibe or Carib, meaning " bold, warlike men," 
i< strangers," and " annexed nation/' In after days, 
increasing in strength and retaining their separate ex- 

1 De Nieuwe en Onbekeende Weereld. Amsterdam, 1671. 

2 Die Unbekante Neue Welt. Amsterdam, 1673. 

3 The British Empire iu America, Vol. I. London, 1708. 

4 Geschichte von Amerika, B. II. Halle, 1753. The ar- 
ticles in these volumes were selected with much judgment, 
and translated by J. F. Geyfarts and J, F. Schroeter, Baum- 
garten merely writing the bibliographical introductions. It 
contains a curious map entitled Gegend der Provinz Bemarin im 
Konigreich Apalacha. 

6 The Chikasah asserted for themselves the same origin, 
and even their Mexican relatives were said to visit them from 
time to time. (Adair, Hist, of the North Am. Indians, p. 
196.) 



THE APAL ACHES. 97 

istence, they asserted independence, refused homage to 
the king of Apalacha, and slighted the worship of 
the sun. Wars consequently arose, extending at in- 
tervals over several centuries, resulting in favor of the 
Cofachites, whose dominion ultimately extended from 
the mountains in the north to the shores of the Gulf 
and the. river St. Johns on the south. Finding them- 
selves too weak to cope openly with such a powerful 
foe, the Apalachites had recourse to stratagem. Taking 
advantage of a temporary peace, their priests used 
the utmost exertions to spread abroad among their 
antagonists a religious veneration of the sun and a 
belief in the necessity of an annual pilgrimage to his 
sacred mountain Olaimi in Apalacha. So well did 
their plan succeed, that when at the resumption of 
hostilities, the Apalachites forbade the ingress of all 
pilgrims but those who would do homage to their 
king, a schism, bitter and irreconcileable, was brought 
about among the Cofachites. Finally peace was re- 
stored by a migration of those to whom liberty was 
dearer than religion, and a submission of the rest to 
the Apalachites, with whom they became amalgamated 
and lost their identity. Their more valiant compan- 
ions, after long wanderings through unknown lands in 
search of a home, finally locate themselves on the 
southern shore of Florida. Islanders from the Baha- 
mas, driven thither by storms, tell them of lands, 
fertile and abounding in game, yet uninhabited and 
unclaimed, lying to the southwards; they follow their 
advice and direction, traverse the Gulf of Florida, and 
settle the island of Ayay, now Santa Cruz. From 
this centre colonies radiated, till the majority of the 
islands and no small portion of the southern mainland 
was peopled by their race. 
9 



yy FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

Such is the sum of Bristock's singular account. It 
is either of no credibility whatever, or it is a distorted 
version of floating, dim traditions, prevalent among 
the indigenes of the West Indies and the neighboring 
parts of North America. I am inclined to the latter 
opinion, and think that Bristock, hearing among the 
Caribs rumors of a continent to the north, and subse- 
quently finding powerful nations there, who, in turn, 
knew of land to the south and spoke of ancient wars 
and migrations, wove the fragments together, filled up 
the blanks, and gave it to the world as a veritable his- 
tory. To support this view, let us inquire whether 
any knowledge of each other actually existed between 
the inhabitants of the islands and the northern main- 
land, and how far this knowledge extended. 

The reality of the migration, though supported by 
some facts, must be denied of the two principal races, 
the Caribs and Arowauks, who peopled the islands at 
the time of their discovery. The assertions of Barcia, 
Herrera, and others that they were originally settled 
by Indians from Florida have been abundantly dis- 
proved by the profound investigations of Alphonse W 
Orbigny in South America. * On the other hand, 
that the Cubans and Lucayans had a knowledge of the 
peninsula not only in the form of myths but as a real 
geographical fact, even having specific names in their 
own tongues for it (Cautio, Jaguaza), is declared by 
the unanimous voice of historians. 

1 Numerous references showing the prevalence of this error 
are adduced by D'Orbigny, L'Homme Americain, Tom. II., 
p. 275, et seq. Among later authors who have been misled 
by such authorities are Humboldt, (" Reise nach dem Tropen, 
B. v., s. 181,") and the eminent naturalist F. J. F. Meyen, 
(Ueber die Ur-Eingebornen von Peru, s. 6, in the Nov. Act. 
Acad. Caesar. Leopold. Carolin. Nat. Cur. Vol. XVII., 
Sup. I.) 



THE APAL ACHES. 99 

The most remarkable of these myths was that of 
the fountain of life, placed by some in the Lueayos, 
but generally in a fair and genial land to the north. ' 
From the tropical forests of Central America to the 
coral-bound Antilles the natives told the Spaniards 
marvellous tales of a fountain whose magic waters 
would heal the sick, rejuvenate the aged, and confer 
an ever-youthful immortality. It may have originated 
in a confused tradition of a partial derivation from the 
mainland and subsequent additions thence received 
from time to time, or more probably from the adora- 
tion of some of the very remarkable springs abundant 
on the peninsula, perchance that wonderful object the 
Silver Spring,^ round which I found signs of a dense 

^ Writers disagree somewhat as to the situation of this 
fountain. Hackluyt (Vol. V., p. 251) and-€l^mara (Hist, de 
las Indias Occidentales, Cap XLV., pp. 31, 35) locate it on 
the island Boiuca or Agnaneo, 125 leagues north of Hispani- 
ola. Some placed it on the island Bimini, — which, says Oviedo, 
is 40 leagues west of Bahama (Pt. I., lib. xix., cap. xv., 
quoted in Navarrete,) — a name sometimes applied to Florida 
itself, as on the Chart of Cristobal de Topia given in the third 
volume of Navarrete. Herrera, La Vega, Fontanedo, Barcia, 
Navarrete and most others agree in referring it to Florida. 
Fontanedo confuses it with the river Jordan and the Espiritu 
Santo or Mississippi. Gomara (ubi supra, p. 31) gives a 
unique interpretation to this myth and one quite in accord- 
ance with the Spanish character, namely, that it arose from 
the rare beauty of the women of that locality, which was so 
superlative that old men, gazing upon it, would feel them- 
selves restored to the vigor of youth. In this he is followed 
by Ogilby. (America, p. 344.) 

2 See Appendix I. The later Indians of Florida seem to 
have preserved certain relics of a superstitious veneration of 
the aqueous element. Their priests had a certain holy water^ 
sanctified by blowing upon it and incantation, thought to 
possess healing virtues (Nar. of Oceola Nikkanoche, p. 141;) 
Coacooche said that when the spirit of his twin-sister came to 
him from the land of souls, she offered him a cup of pure 



100 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

early population, its virtues magnified by time, dis- 
tance, and the arts of priests. We know how inti- 
mately connected is the worship of the sun with the 
veneration of water ; heat typifying the masculine, 
moisture the feminine principle. The universality of 
their association in the Old World cosmogonies and 
mythologies is too well-known to need specification, 
and it is quite as invariable in those of the New Con- 
tinent. That such magnificent springs as occur in Flo- 
rida should have become objects of special veneration, 
and their fame bruited far and wide, and handed down 
form father to son, is a most natural consequence in 
such faiths.* 

Certain it is that long before these romantic tales 
had given rise to the expeditions of De Leon, Narvaez, 
and J)e Soto, many natives of the Lucayos, of Cuba, 
even or*Tucatan and Honduras,^ had set out in search 
of this mystic fount. Many were lost, while some 
lived to arrive on the Floridian coast, where finding it 
impossible either to proceed or return, they formed 
small villages, '^ whose race,'^ adds Barcia,^ writing in 

■water, "which she said came from the spring of the Gi-eat 
Spirit, and if I should drink of it, I should return and live 
•with her for ever." (Sprague, Hist. Florida War, p. 328.) 

^ Parallel myths are found in various other nations. Sir 
John Maundeville speaks of the odoriferous fountain of youth 
near the river Indus, and Ellis mentions "the Hawaiian ac- 
count of the voyage of Kamapiikai to the land where the 
inhabitants enjoy perpetual health, where the u-ai ora (life- 
giving fountain) removed every internal malady and external 
deformity or decrepitude from those who were plunged be- 
neath its salutary waters." (Polynesian Researches, Vol I., 
p. 103.) 

2 Fontanedo, Memoire, pp. 17, 18, 19, 32, 39. Gomara, 
Hist, de las Indias, cap. XLI., p. 31. 

3 Intro, to the Ensay. Cron. ; Fontanedo makes the same 
statement. 



THE APALACHES. 101 

1722, "is still in existence" (cuia generacion aun 
dura). This statement, which the cautious investiga- 
tor Navarrete confirms,^ seems less improbable when 
we reflect that in after times it was no uncommon in- 
cident for the natives of Cuba to cross the Gulf of 
Florida in their open boats to escape the slavery of 
the Spaniards,^ that the Lucayans had frequent com- 
munication with the mainland,^ that the tribes of 
South Florida, as early as 1695, carried on a consider- 
able trade with Havana,"^ that the later Indians on the 
Suwannee would on their trading excursions not only 
descend this river in their large cypress canoes, but 
proceed " quite to the point of Florida, and sometimes 
cross the Gulph, extending their navigations to the 
Bahama islands and even to Cuba,''^ and finally that 
nothing was more common to such a seafaring nation 
as the Oaribs than a voyage of this length.^ 

Another remarkable myth, which certainly points for 
its explanation to an early and familiar intercourse 
between the islands and the mainland, is the singular 

1 Despues de establecido los Espanoles en las Islas de Santo 
Domingo, Cuba, y Puerto Rico, averiguarou que los naturales 
conservaban algunas ideas vagas de tierras situadas a la parte 
septentrional, donde entre otras cosas maravillosas referian 
la existencia de cierta fuente y rio, cuyas aguas remozabau a 
los viejos que en ella se bauaban ; preocupacion tan anejay 
arraigada en los Indios, que aun antes de la llegada de los 
espauoles los habia conducido a establecer alii una.colonia. 
Viages y Descubrimientos, Tomo III,, p. 50. 

2 L'Art de Verifier les Dates, Chronologie Historique de 
TAmerique, Tome VIII., p. 185. 

3 Herrera, Dec. I., Lib. IX., cap. XL, p. 249. 

4 Barcia, Ensay. Cron., Alio 1698, p. 317, Careri, Voyage 
round the World, in Churchill's CoU. Vol. IV., p. 537. 

s William Bartram, Travels, p. 227. 

^ See Labat, Voyage aux Isles de I'Amerique, Tome L, p, 
136, and Hughes, Nat, Hist of Barbadoes, p. 5. 
9* 



102 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

geognostic tradition prevalent among the Lucayans, 
preserved by Peter of Anghiera, to the effect that this 
archipelago was originally united to the continent by 
jBrm land.^ Doubtless it was on such grounds that 
the Spaniards concluded that they owed their original 
settlement to migrations from the Floridian peninsula. 
Turning our attention now to this latter land, we 
should have cause to be surprised did we not find 
signs that such adventurous navigators as the Caribs 
had planned and executed incursions and settlements 
there. That these signs are so sparse and unsatisfac- 
tory we owe not so much to their own rarity as to the 
slight weight attached to such things by the early ex- 
plorers and discoverers. From the accounts we do 
possess, however, there can be no doubt but that ves- 
tiges of the Caribbean tongue, if not whole tribes 
identical with them in language and customs, have 
been met with from time to time on the peninsula.^ 
The striking similarity in the customs of flattening 
the forehead, in poisoning weapons, in the use of hol- 
low reeds to propel arrows, in the sculpturing on war 
clubs, construction of dwellings, exsiccation of corpses,^ 



1 Jucaias a conjecturis junctas fuisse quondam reliquis 
magnis insulis]nostri arbitrantur, et ita fuiseea suis majoribus 
creditum incolce fatentur. Sed vi tempestatepaulatim absorpta 
tellure alterne secessisse, pelago interjecto uti de messenensi 
freto est autorum opinio Siciliam ab Italia dirimente, quod 
una esset quondam contigua. De Novo Orbe, Dec. VII., cap. 
II., p. 468, Editio Hackluyti, Parisiis, 1587- 

2 On this topic consult Baumgarten, Geschiclite von Ame- 
rika, B. II., s. 583 ; Jefferys, Hist, of the French Dominion 
in America, Ft. II., p. 181; Adelung, Allgemeine Sprachen- 
kuude, Th. II., Ab. II., s. 681 ; Barton, New Views of the 
Tribes of iVmerica, p. Ixxi. ; Hervas, Catalogo de las Len- 
guas conocidas, Tomo I., p. 387. 

^ See Appendix II. 



THE APALACHES. 103 

burning the houses of the dead, and other rites, 
though far from conclusive are yet not without a 
decided weight. It is much to be regretted that Adair 
has left us no fuller information of those seven tribes 
on the Koosah river, who spoke a different tongue 
from the Muskohge and preserved " a fixed oral tradi- 
tion that they formerly came from South America, and 
after sundry struggles in defence of liberty settled 
their present abode. '^^ 

Thus it clearly appears that the frame, so to speak, 
of the traditions preserved by Bristock actually did 
exist and may be proved from other writers. But we 
are still more strongly convinced that his account is at 
least founded on fact, when we compare the manners 
and customs of the Apalachites, as he gives them, 
with those of the Cherokee, Choktah, Chickasah, and 
Muskohge, tribes plainly included by him under this 
name, and proved by the philological researches of Gal- 
latin to have occupied the same location since De Soto's 
expedition.2 We need have no suspicion that he pla- 
giarized from other authors, as the particulars he men- 
tions are not found in earlier writers ; and it was not 
till 1661 that the English settled Carolina, not till 
1699 that Iberville built his little fort on the Bay of 
Biloxi, and many years elapsed between this latter and 
the general treaty of Oglethorpe. If then we find a 
close similarity in manners, customs, and religions, we 
must perforce concede his accounts, such as they have 
reached us, a certain degree of credit. 



1 Hist, of the North Am. Indians, p. 267. 

2 Trans. Am Antiq. Soc. Vol. II., p. 103 seq. Bossu found 
the tradition of De Soto's invasion rife among the Alibamons 
(Creeks) of his day. (Nouv. Voyages aux Indes Occident. 
Pt. II., pp. 34, 35. Paris, 1768.) 



104 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

He begins by stating that Apalacha was divided 
into six provinces; Dumont/ writing from independent 
observation about three-fourths of a century afterwards, 
makes the same statement. Their towns were inclosed 
with stakes or live hedges, the houses built of stakes 
driven into the ground in an oval shape, were plastered 
with mud and sand, whitewashed without, and some of 
a reddish glistening color within from a peculiar kind 
of sand, thatched with grass, and only five or six feet 
high, the council-house being usually on an elevation. ^ 
If the reader will turn to the authorities quoted in the 
subjoined note, he will find this an exact description of 
the towns and single dwellings of the later Indians.^ 
The women manufactured mats of down and feathers 
with the same skill that a century later astonished 



* Memoires Historiques sur la Louisiane, Tome II., p. 301. 

^ The Cherokees plastered their houses both roofs and 
walls inside and out with clay and dried grass, and to com- 
pensate for the lowness of the walls excavated the floor as 
much as three or four feet. From this it is probable they 
were the " Indi delle Vacche" of Cabeza de Vaca " tra 
queste case ve ne havea alcune che erano di terra, e tutte 
I'altre sono di stuore." (Di Alvaro Nunnes Relatione in Ra- 
musio, Viaggi, Tom. III., fol. 327, B.) A similar construc- 
tion was noticed by Biedma in Acapachiqui where the houses 
" etaient creusees sous terre et rassemblaient a des cavernes," 
(Relation, pp. 60, 61,) by the Portuguese Gentlemen in Capa- 
chiqui, (Hackluyt, Vol. V., p. 498,) and by La Vega among 
the Cofachiqui, (Conq. de la Florida, Lib. III., cap. XV., p. 
181.) Hence the Cherokees are identical with the latter and 
not with the Achalaques, as Schoolcraft erroneously advances. 
(Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes, p. 695.) I suppose it 
was from this peculiar style of building that the Iroquois 
called them Owaudah, a people who live in caves. (School- 
craft, Notes on the Iroquois, p. 163.) 

3 Adair, Hist, of the N. Am. Inds., pp. 413, 420, 421 ; Wm. 
Bartram, Travels, pp. 367, 388 ; Le Page Dupratz, Hist, of 
Louisiana, Vol. II., pp. 351-2. 



THE APAL ACHES. 105 

Adair,^ and spun like these the wild hemp and the 
mulberry bark into various simple articles of clothing. 
The fantastic custom of shaving the hair on one-half 
the head, and permitting the other half to remain, on 
certain emergencies, is also mentioned by later tra- 
vellers. 2 Their food was not so much game as peas, 
beans, maize, and other vegetables, produced by culti- 
vation J and the use of salt obtained from vegetable 
ashes, so infrequent among the Indians, attracted the 
notice of Bristock as well as Adair.^ Their agricul- 
tural character reminds us of the Choktahs, among 
whom the men helped their wives to labor in the 
field, and whom Bernard Romans* called "a nation of 
farmers." In Apalache, says Dumont,^ (' we find a 
less rude, more refined nation, peopling its meads and 
fertile vales, cultivating the earth, and living on the 
abundance of excellent fruit it produces." 

Strange as a fairy tale is Bristock's description of 
their chief temple and the rites of their religion — of 
the holy mountain Olaimi lifting its barren, round 
summit far above the capital city Melilot at its base — 
of the two sacred caverns within this mount, the inner- 
most two hundred feet square and one hundred in 
height, wherein were the emblematic vase ever 'filled 
with crystal water that trickled from the rock, and the 
"grand altar" of one round stone, on which incense, 
spices, and aromatic shrubs were the only ofi'erings — 
of the platform, sculptured from the solid rock, where 

1 Hist. N. Am. Inds., pp. 422-3. 

2 Fran9ois Coreal, Voyages, Tome I., p. 31 ; Catesby, Ac- 
count of Florida and the Bahama Islands, p. viii. 

3 Hist. N. Am. Inds., p. 116. 

4 Nat. Hist, of E. and W. Florida, pp. 71, 83. 

5 Mems. Hist, sur la Louisiane, Tome II., p. 301. 



106 FLOEIDIAN PENINSULA. 

the priests offered their morning orisons to the glorious 
orb of their divinity at his daily birth — of their four 
great annual feasts — all reminding us rather of the 
pompous rites of Persian or Peruvian heliolatry than 
the simple sun worship of the Vesporic tribes. Yet 
in essentials, in stated yearly feasts, in sun and fire 
worship, in daily prayers at rising and setting sun, 
in frequent ablution, we recognize through all this 
exaggeration and coloring, the religious habits that 
actually prevailed in those regions. Indeed, the specu- 
lative antiquarian may ask concerning Mount Olaimi 
itself, whether it may not be identical with the enor- 
mous mass of granite known as "The Stone Mountain'^ 
in De Kalb county, Georgia, whose summit presents an 
oval, flat, and naked surface two or three hundred yards 
in width, by about twice that in length, encircled by 
the remains of a mural construction of unknown an- 
tiquity, and whose sides are pierced by the mouths of 
vast caverns;^ or with Lookout mountain between 
the Coosa and Tennessee rivers, where Mr. Ferguson 
found a stone wall " thirty-seven roods and eight feet 
in length,'' skirting the brink of a precipice at whose 
base were five rooms artificially constructed in the solid 
rock.^ 

One of the the most decisive proofs of the veracity 
of Bristock's narrative is his assertion that they mum- 
mified the corpses of their chiefs previous to interment. 

1 George White, Hist. Colls, of Georgia, p. 423. It has 
also been described to me by a gentleman resident in the 
vicinity. 

^ See the Christian Advocate and Journal for 1832, and 
the almost unintelligible abstract of the article in Josiah 
Priest's American Antiquities, pp. 169, 170, (third edition, 
Albany, 1833.) Though the account is undoubtedly exag- 
gerated, it would merit further investigation. 



THE APALACHES. 107 

Recent discoveries of such mummies leave us^no room 
to doubt the prevalence of this custom among various 
Indian tribes east of the Mississippi. It is of so much 
interest to the antiquarian, that I shall add in an 
Appendix the details given on this point by later 
writers, as well as an examination of the origin of 
those mummies that have been occasionally disinterred 
in the caves of Tennessee and Kentucky.* 

One other topic for examination in Bristock's me- 
moir yet remains — the scattered words of the language 
he mentions. The principal are the following ^^ 

Mayrdock — the Viracocha of their traditions. 

Naarim — the month of March. 

Theomi — proper name of the Gulf of Mexico. 

Jauas — priests. 

Tlatuici — the mountain tribes. 

Paracussi — chief; a generic term. 

Bersaykau — vale of cedars. 

Akueyas — deer. 

Hitanachi — pleasant, beautiful. 

Tonatzuli — heavenly singer; the name of a bird 
sacred to the sun. 

Several of these words may be explained from 
tongues with which we are better acquainted. 

Jauas and Paracussi are words used in the sense 
they here bear in many early writers; the derivation 
of the former will be considered hereafter; that of the 
latter is uncertain. Tlatuici is doubtless identical 
with Tsalakie, the proper appellation of the Cherokee 
tribe. Akueyas has a resemblance, though remote, to 

• See Appendix II. 

2 I give these according to the orthography of Baumgarten, 
who may dijQfer slightly from other writers. 



108 FLOEIDIAN PENINSULA. 

the Seminole ekho of the same signification. In 
hitanachi we recognize the Choktah intensitive prefix 
hhito; and in tonatzuli a compound of the Choktah 
verb ialoa, he sings, in one of its forms, with sJiutik, 
Muskohge sootah, heaven or sky. A closer examina- 
tion would doubtless reveal other analogies, but the 
above are sufl&cient to show that these were no mere 
unmeaning words, coined by a writer's fancy. 

The general result of these inquiries, therefore, is 
strongly in favor of the authenticity of Bristock's nar- 
rative. Exaggerated and distorted though it be, never- 
theless it is the product of actual observation, and 
deserves to be classed among our authorities, though as 
one to be used with the greatest caution. We have also 
found that though no general migration took place from 
the continent southward, nor from the islands north- 
ward, yet there was considerable intercourse in both 
directions; that not only the natives of the greater and 
lesser Antilles and Yucatan, but also numbers of the 
Guaranay stem of the southern continent, the Caribs 
proper, crossed the Straits of Florida and founded 
colonies on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico; that 
their customs and language became to a certain extent 
grafted upon those of the earlier possessors of the soil; 
and to this foreign language the name Apalache be- 
longs. As previously stated, it was used as a generic 
title, applied to a confederation of many nations at one 
time under the domination of one chief, whose power 
probably extended from the Alleghany mountains on 
the north to the shore of the Gulf; that it included 
tribes speaking a tongue closely akin to the Choktah 
is evident from the fragments we have remaining. 
This is further illustrated by a few words of " Appa- 





Apalachian. 


Choktah. 


Father 


kelke 


aunkky, unky 


Heaven 


hetucoba 


ubbah, mtensi- 
tive, hhito 


Earth 


ahan 


yahkna 


Bread 


pasca 


puska 



THE APALACHES. 109 

lachian/^ preserved by John Chamberlayne.* These, 
with their congeners in cognate dialects, are as fol- 
lows : 

Muskohge. 



ikahnah 



The location of the tribe in after years is very un- 
certain. Dumont placed them in the northern part of 
what is now Alabama and Georgia, near the mountains 
that bear their name. That a portion of them did live 
in this vicinity is corroborated by the historians of 
South Carolina, who say that Colonel Moore, in 1703, 
found them ^' between the head-waters of the Savannah 
and Altamaha.^a J)q risle, also, locates them between 
the R. des Caouitas ou R. de Mai and the R. des 
Chaouanos ou d^ EdiscOj both represented as flowing 
nearly parallel from the mountains. 

According to all the Spanish authorities on the other 
hand, they dwelt in the region of country between the 
Suwannee and Apalachicola rivers — yet must not be 
confounded with the Apalachicolos. Thus St. Marks 
was first named San Marco de Apalache, and it was 
near here that Narvaez and De Soto found them. 
They certainly had a large and prosperous town in 
this vicinity, said to contain a thousand warriors, 
whose chief was possessed of much influence.^ De 

* Oratio Dominica Polyglotta, Amstelasdami, 1715. He 
does not state where he obtained them. 

2 Hewitt, History of South Carolina, "Vol. I. p 156. 

3 El Cacique principal de Apalache, Superior de muchoa 
Caciques, Barcia, Ensay. Cron., p. 323. 

10 



110 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

risle makes this their original locality, inscribing it 
'■^Icy estoient cy devant les Apalaches,^' and their posi- 
tion in his day as one acquired subsequently. That 
they were driven from the Apalachicola by the Aliba- 
mons and other western tribes in 1705, does not admit 
of a doubt, yet it is equally certain that at the time of 
the cession of the country to the English, (1763,) they 
retained a small village near St. Marks, called San 
Juan.^ I am inclined to believe that these were dif- 
ferent branches of the same confederacy, and the more 
so as we find a similar discrepancy in the earliest nar- 
ratives of the French and Spanish explorers. 

In the beginning of the eighteenth century they 
sufiered much from the devastations of the English, 
French, and Creeks; indeed, it has been said, though 
erroneously, that the last remnant of their tribe 
"was totally destroyed by the Creeks in 1719." ^ 
About the time Spain regained possession of the soil, 
they migrated to the West and settled on the Bayou 
Rapide of Red River. Here they had a village num- 
bering about fifty souls, and preserved for a time at 
least their native tongue, though using the French and 
Mobilian (Chikasah) for common purposes.^ Breck- 
enridge,* who saw them here, describes them as 
" wretched creatures, who are diminishing daily." 
Probably by this time the last representative of this 
once powerful tribe has perished. 

1 Roberts, Hist, of Florida, p. 14. 

2 Schoolcraft's Ind. Tribes, Vol. V. p. 259. 

' Schermerhorn, Report on the Western Indians in Mass. 
Hist. Colls. Vol. II. (2 ser.,} p. 26; Alcedo, Hist, and Geog. 
Diet, of America, Vol. I., p. 82. 

* Views of Louisiana, p. 150. 



TKIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Ill 
CHAPTER III. 

PENINSULAR TRIBeS Or THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 

§ 1. Situation and Social Condition. — Caloosas. — Tegesta 

and Ais. — Tocobaga. — Vitachuco. — Utina. — Soturiba. — 

Method of Government. 
^ 2. Civilization. — Appearance. — Games. — Agriculture. — 

Construction of Dwellings. — Clothing. 
§ 3. Religion. — General Remarks. — Festivals in honor of 

the Sun and Moon. — Sacrifices. — Priests. — Sepulchral 

Rites. 
^ 4. Languages. — Timuquana Tongue. — Words preserved by 

the French. 

§ 1. — Situation and Social Condition. 

AVhen in the sixteenth century the Europeans 
began to visit Florida they did not, as is asserted by 
the excellent bishop of Chiapa, meet with numerous 
well ordered and civilized nations^* but on the contrary 
found the land sparsedly peopled by a barbarous and 
quarrelsome race of savages, rent asunder into mani- 
fold petty clans, with little peaceful leisure wherein to 
better their condition, wasting their lives in aimless 
and unending internecine war. Though we read of 
the cacique Vitachuco who opposed De Soto with ten 
thousand chosen warriors, of another who had four 
thousand always ready for battle," and other such in- 

' Trovarono terre grandi piene di genti molto ben disposte, 
savie, politiche, e ben' ordinate. Bartolome de las Casas, 
Istoria della Distruttione dell' Indie Occidentali, p, 108. Ve- 
netia, 1626. 

2 Barcia, Ensay. Cron., p. 71. 



112 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

stances of distinguished power, we must regard them 
as the hyperbole of men describing an unknown and 
strange land, supposed to abound in marvels of every 
description. The natural laws that regulate the in- 
crease of all hunting tribes, the analogy of other 
nations of equal civilization, the nature of the country, 
and lastly, the adverse testimony of these same writers, 
forbid us to entertain any other supposition. Includ- 
ing men, women, and children, the aboriginal popula- 
tion of the whole peninsula probably but little exceeded 
at any one time ten thousand souls. At the period 
of discovery these were parcelled out into villages, a 
number of which, uniting together for self-protection, 
recognized the authority of one chief. How many 
there were of these confederacies, or what were the 
precise limits of each, as they never were stable, so it 
is impossible to lay down otherwise than in very 
general terms, dependent as we are for our information 
on the superficial notices of military explorers, who 
took an interest in anything rather than the political 
relations of the nations they were destroying. 

Commencing at the south, we find the extremity of 
the peninsula divided into two independent provinces, 
one called Tegesta on the shores of the Atlantic, the 
other and most important on the west or Gulf coast 
possessed by the Caloosa tribe. 

The derivation of the name of the latter is uncer- 
tain. The French not distinguishing the final letter 
wrote it Calos and Callos ; the Spaniards, in addition 
to making the same omission, softened the first vowel 
till the word sounded like Carlos, which is their usual 
orthography. This suggested to Barcia and others 
that the country was so called from the name of its 
chief, who, hearing from his Spanish captives the 



TRIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 113 

grandeur and power of Charles of Spain (Carlos V), 
in emulation appropriated to himself the title. Doubt- 
less, however, it is a native word ; and so Fontanedo, 
from whom we derive most of our knowledge of the 
province, and who was acquainted with the language, 
assures us. He translates it ^^ village cruelj'^ an in- 
terpretation that does not enlighten us much, but 
which may refer to the exercise of the sovereign 
power. As a proper name, it may be the Muskohge 
charlo, trout, assumed, according to a common custom, 
by some individual. It is still preserved in the Semi- 
\^ nole appellation of the Sanybal river, Carlosa-hatchie 
and Caloosa-hatchie, and in that of the bay of Carlos, 
corrupted by the English to Charlotte Harbor, both on 
the southwestern coast of the peninsula near north 
latitude 26° 40'. 

According to Fontanedo, the province included fifty 
villages of thirty or forty inhabitants each, as follows : 
"Tampa, Tomo, Tuchi, Sogo, No which means be- 
loved village, Sinapa, Sinaesta, Metamapo, Sacaspada, 
Calaobe, Estame, Yagua, Gruayu, Guevu, Muspa, Cas- 
itoa, Tatesta, Coyovea, Jutun, Tequemapo, Comachica, 
Quisiyove, and two others ; on Lake Mayaimi, Cutespa, 
Tavaguemme, Tomsobe, Enempa, and twenty others ; 
in the Lucayan Isles, Guarunguve and Cuchiaga." 
Some of these are plainly Spanish names, while others 
undoubtedly belong to the native tongue. Of these 
villages, Tampa has given its name to the inlet for- 
merly called the bay of Espiritu Santo" and to the 

1 Memoire, p. 13. 

2 At what time or by whom Tampa Bay was first so called 
I have not been able to learn. Its usual name in early nar- 
ratives is Baia de Espiritu Santo, which was given by De 
Soto ; sometimes from separate discoveries it was called 

10* 



114 FLORIDIAN PENiNSULA. 

small town at its head. Muspa was the name of a 
tribe of Indians who till the close of the last century 
inhabited the shores and islands in and near Boca 
Grande, where they are located on various old maps. 
Thence they were driven to the Keys and finally anni- 
hilated by the irruptions of the Seminoles and Span- 
iards.^ Guaragunve, or Guaragumbe, described by 
Fontanedo as the largest Indian village on Los Mar- 
tires, and which means " the village of tears/' is prob- 
ably a modified orthography of Matacumbe and iden- 
tical with the island of Old Matacumbe, remarkable 
for the quantity of lignum vitse there found,'^ and one 
of the last refuges of the Muspa Indians. Lake 
Mayaimi, around which so many villages were situated, 
is identical with lake Okee-chobee, called on the older 
maps and indeed as late as Tanner's and Carey's, 
Myaco and Macaco. When Aviles ascended the St. 
Johns, he was told by the natives that it took its ori- 
gin '' from a great lake called Maimi thirty leagues in 
extent,'^ from which also streams flowed westerly to 
Carlos.3 In sound the word resembles the Seminole 
paiolcee or pai-hai-o-hee, grassy lake, the name applied 
with great fitness by this tribe to the Everglades.* 

Bahia Honda (Deep Bay,) El Lago de San Bernardo, Baie de 
St. Louis, and by the Indians Culata (Barcia, Ensayo Cron. 
p, 342, Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, Lib. I., Cap. VI.) 
Herrera in his map of the Audiencia de la Espaiiola marks it 
«' B. de tampa," and after him Gerard a Schaagen in the|Nov. 
et Accurat. Americse Descriptio. 

1 Williams, Hist, of Florida, pp. 36, 212. Ellicott's Jour- 
nal, p. 247. Robert's Hist, of Florida, p. 17. 

2 Guaicum ofl&cinale ; the el jpalo or el palo sanio of the 
Spaniards. 

3 Barcia, En. Cron, Auo 1566. 

4 See Prior's Journal in Williams' Florida, p. 299. The 
name Miami applied to a tribe in Ohio, and still retained by 



TRIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 115 

When travelling in Florida I found a small body of 
water near Manatee called lake Mayaco, and on the 
eastern shore the river Miami preserves the other form 
of the name. 

The chief of the province dwelt in a village twelve 
or fourteen leagues from the southernmost cape.* The 
earliest of whom we have any account, Sequene by 
name, ruled about the period of the discovery of the 
continent. During his reign Indians came from Cuba 
and Honduras, seeking the fountain of life. He was 
succeeded by Carlos, first of the name, who in turn 
was followed by his son Carlos. In the time of the 
latter, Francesco de Reinoso, under the command of 
Pedro Menendez de Aviles, the founder of St. Augus- 
tine and Adelantado of Florida, established a colony 
in this territory, which, however, owing to dissensions 
with the natives, never flourished, and finally the Ca- 
cique was put to death by Reinoso for some hostile 
demonstration. His son was taken by Aviles to 
Havana to be educated and there baptized Sebastian. 
Every attempt was made to conciliate him, and recon- 
cile him to the Spanish supremacy but all in vain, as 
on his return he became ^' more troublesome and bar- 
barous than ever." This occurred about 1565-1 575. ^ 
Not long after his death the integrity of the state was 
destroyed, and splitting up into lesser tribes, each lived 

two rivers in that State, properly Omaumeg, is said to be a 
pure Algic word, meaning, People who live on the peninsula. 
(Amer. Hist. Mag. Vol. III., p. 90.) We are, however, not 
yet prepared to accept this explanation as applicable to the 
word as it appears in Florida. 

^ Barcia, Ensay. Cron., p. 49, and compare the Hist. Nota- 
ble, p. 134. 

2 For these facts see Fontanedo's Memoire, passim, and 
Barcia, Auos 1566, 1567. 



116 FLOEIDIAN PENINSULA. 

independent. They gradually diminished in number 
under the repeated attacks of the Spaniards on the 
south and their more warlike neighbors on the north. 
Vast numbers were carried into captivity by both, and 
at one period the Keys were completely depopulated. 
The last remnant of the tribe was finally cooped up on 
Cayo Yaco and Cayo Hueso (Key West), where they 
became notorious for their inhumanity to the unfor- 
tunate mariners wrecked on that dangerous reef. 
Ultimately, at the cession of Florida, to England in 
1763, they migrated in a body to Cuba, to the number 
of eighty families, since which nothing is known of 
their fate.* 

Of the province of Tegesta, situate to the west of 
the Caloosas, we have but few notices. It embraced 
a string of villages, the inhabitants of which were 
famed as expert fishers, (grandes Pescadores,) stretch- 
ing from Cape Canaveral to the southern extremity.^ 
The more northern portion was in later times called 
Ais, (Ays, Is) from the native word a'isa, deer, and by 
the Spaniards, who had a post here, Santa Lucea.^ 
The residence of the chief was near Cape Canaveral, 
probably on Indian river, and not more than five days 
journey from the chief town of the Caloosas. 

At the period of the French settlements, such 
amity existed between these neighbors, that the ruler of 
the latter sought in marriage the daughter of Oath- 
caqua, chief of Tegesta, a maiden of rare and renowned 

1 Bernard Romans, pp. 291-2. 

* Desde los Martires al Canaveral, Herrera. Dec. IV., Lib., 
IV., cap. VII. 

3 Barcia (En. Cron. p. 118) says Ais commences twenty 
leagues up the St. Johns river ; but distances given by the 
Spanish historians were often mere guesses, quite untrust- 
worthy. 



TEIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 117 

beauty. Her father, well aware how ticklish is the 
tenure of such a jewel, willingly granted the desire of 
his ally and friend. Encompassing her about with 
stalwart warriors, and with maidens not a few for her 
companions, he started to conduct her to her future 
spouse. But alas ! for the anticipations of love ! 
Near the middle of his route was a lake called Ser- 
rope, nigh five leagues about, encircling an island, 
whereon dwelt a race of men valorous in war and 
opulent from a traffic in dates, fruits, and a root " so 
excellent well fitted for bread, that you could not 
possibly eat better," which formed the staple food of 
their neighbors for fifteen leagues around. These, 
fired by the reports of her beauty and the charms of 
the attendant maidens, waylay the party, rout the 
warriors, put the old father to flight, and carry ofi" in 
triumph the princess and her fair escort, with them to 
share the joys and wonders of their island home. 

Such is the romantic story told Laudonniere by a 
Spaniard long captive among the natives.^ Why seek 
to discredit it? May not Serrope be the beautiful 
Lake Ware in Marion county, which flows around a 
fertile central isle that lies like an emerald on its placid 
bosom, still remembered in tradition as the ancient 
residence of an Indian prince, 3 and where relics of the 
red man still exist ? The dates, les dattes, may have 
been the fruit of the Prunus Chicasaw, an exotic fruit 
known to have been cultivated by the later Indians, 
and the bread a preparation of the coonta root or the 
yam. 

North of the province of Carlos, throughout the 

1 Basanier, Hist. Notable, pp. 133-4. 

2 Vignoles, Obs. on the Floridas, pp. 74-5. 



118 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

country around the Hillsboro river, and from it prob- 
ably to the Withlacooche, and easterly to the Ockla- 
waha, all the tribes appear to have been under the 
domination of one ruler. The historians of De Soto's 
expedition called the one in power at that period, 
Paracoxi, Hurripacuxi, and Urribarracuxi, names, 
however different in orthography, not unlike in sound, 
and which are doubtless corruptions of one and the 
same word, otherwise spelled Paracussi, and which 
was a generic appellation of the chiefs from Maryland 
to Florida. The town where they found him residing, 
is variously stated as twenty, twenty-five, and thirty 
leagues from the coast,i and has by later writers been 
located on the head-waters of the Hillsboro river.^ In 
later times the cacique dwelt in a village on Old 
Tampa Bay, twenty leagues from the main, called 
Tocobaga or Togabaja,^ (whence the province derived 
its name,) and was reputed to be the most potent in 
Florida. A large mound still seen in the vicinity 
marks the spot. 

This confederacy waged a desultory warfare with 
their southern neighbors. In 1567, Aviles, then super- 
intending the construction of a fort among the Caloosas, 
resolved to establish a peace between them, and for this 
purpose went himself to Tocobaga. He there located a 
garrison, but the span of its existence was almost as 
brief as that of the peace he instituted. Subsequently, 
when the attention of the Spaniards became confined to 
their settlements on the eastern coast, they lost sight 

1 Biedma, Relation, p. 53 ; the Port. Gent, in Hackluyt, V., 
p. 492 ; La Vega, Lib. II., cap. x., p. 38. 

2 Irving's Conquest of Fla., p. 84, note. 

3 Barcia, Ano 1567 ; Fontanedo, pp. 20, 35. 



TRIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 119 

of this province, and thus no particulars of its after 
history are preserved. 

The powerful chief Vitachuco, who is mentioned in 
the most extravagant terms by La Vega and the Gen- 
tleman of Elvas, seems, in connection with his two 
brothers, to have ruled over the rolling pine lands and 
broad fertile savannas now included in Marion and 
Alachua counties. Though his power is undoubtedly 
greatly over-estimated by these writers, we have reason 
to believe, both from existing remains and from the 
capabilities of the country, that this was the most 
densely populated portion of the peninsula, and that 
its possessors enjoyed a degree of civilization superior 
to that of the majority of their neighbors. 

The chief Potavou mentioned in the French ac- 
counts, residing about twenty -five leagues, or two 
days' journey from the territory of Utina, and at war 
with him, appears to have lived about the same spot, 
and may have been a successor or subject of the ca- 
cique of this province.^ 

The rich hammocks that border the upper St. Johns 
and the flat pine woods that stretch away on either 
side of this river, as far south as the latitude of Cape 
Canaveral,^ were at the time of the first settlement of 
the country under the control of a chief called by the 
Spanish Utina, and more fully by the French Olata 
Ou9e Outina. His stationary residence was on the 
banks of the river near the northern extremity of 
Lake George, in which locality certain extensive earth- 

1 Basanier, Hist. Notable, pp. 190-1, 108-9, 140 sq. 

2 Jusqu 'a Mayajuaca, dans la contree de Ais, vers le lieu 
plante de roseauz. Fontanedo, Memoire, p. 35. Canaveral 
is a Spanish word signifying the same as the expression I 
have italicised. 



120 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

works are still found, probably referable to tliis period. 
So wide was his dominion that it was said to embrace 
more than forty subordinate chiefs,* which, however, 
are to be understood only as the heads of so many 
single villages. It is remarkable, and not very easy 
of satisfactory explanation, that among nine of these 
mentioned by Laudonniere,^ two, Acquera and Mo- 
quoso, are the names of villages among the first 
encountered by De Soto in his march through the 
peninsula, and said by all the historians of the expe- 
dition to be subject to the chief Paracoxi. 
(^/ Soturiba (Sotoriva, Satourioi^a) was a powerful chief, 
claiming the territory around' the mouth of the St. 
Johns, and northward along the coast nearly as far as 
the Savannah. Thirty sub-chiefs acknowledged his 
supremacy, and his influence extended to a consider- 
able distance inland. He showed himself an impla- 
cable enemy to the Spaniards, and in 1567, assisted 
Dominique de Gourgues to destroy their settlements 
on the St. Johns. His successor, Casicola, is spoken 
of by Nicolas Bourguignon as the ^' lord of ten thou- 
sand Indians," and ruler of all the land <^ between St. 
Augustine and®St. Helens.'^ 

The political theories on which these confederacies 
were based, diflfered singularly in some particulars from 
those of the Indians of higher latitudes. Among the 
latter the chief usually won his position by his own 
valor and wisdom, held it only so long as he main- 
tained this superiority, and dying, could appoint no 
heir to his pre-eminence. His counsel was sought 
only in an emergency, and his authority coerced his 
fellows to no subjection. All this was reversed among 

1 Basanier, Hist. Not. p. 90. 2 ibid. 



TRIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 121 

the Floridians. The children of the first wife in- 
herited the power and possessions of their father/ the 
eldest getting the lion's share ; the sub-chiefs paid to 
their superior stated tributes of roots, games, skins, 
and similar articles ;2 and these superiors held unques- 
tioned and absolute power over the persons, property, 
and time of their subjects,^ Among the Caloosas, 
indeed, the king was considered of divine nature, and 
believed to have the power to grant or withhold sea- 
sons favorable to the crops, and fortune in the chase ; 
a superstition the shrewd chief took care to foster by 
retiring at certain periods almost unattended to a soli- 
tary spot, ostensibly to confer with the gods concerning 
the welfare of the nation.^ In war the chief led the 
van with a chosen body guard for his protection,* and 
in peace daily sate in the council house, there both to 
receive the homage of his inferiors, and to advise with 
his counsellors on points of national interest. The 
devotion of the native to their ruler, willingly losing 
their lives in his defence, is well illustrated in the 
instance of Vitachuco, killed by De Soto. So scrupu- 
lously was the line of demarcation preserved between 
them and their subjects, that even their food was of 
different materials.^ 

1 Basanier, Hist. Not. p. 8. 

2 Hackluyt, Vol. V., p. 492, Fontanedo, p. 15. 

^ Les Floridiens ne sement, ne plantent, ne prennent rien 
ni a la chasse, ni a la peche, qui ne soit a la disposition de 
leurs chefs, qui distribuent, et donnent, comme il leur plait, 
etc. Fran9ois Coreal, Voiages, Tome I., p. 44. The chiefs 
on the Bahamas possessed similar absolute power. (Peter 
Martyr, De Novo Orbe, Dec. VII., cap. I., p. 467.) 

4 Basanier, Hist. Not., p. 132. 

^ Basanier, pp. 9, 141. 

^ Fontanedo, pp. 10, 11. ' 

11 



122 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 



§ 2. — Civilization. 

The Floridians were physically a large, well propor- 
tioned race, of that light shade of brown termed by 
the French olivdtre On the southern coast they were 
of a darker color, caused by exposure to the rays of 
the sun while fishing, and are described by Herrera as 
<' of great stature and fearful to look upon,^' (de grandes 
cuerpos y de espantosa vista). What rendered their 
aspect still more formidable to European eyes was the 
habit of tattooing their skin, practiced for the double 
purpose of increasing their beauty, and recording their 
warlike exploits. Though this is a perfectly natural 
custom, and common wherever a warm climate and 
public usage permits the uncivilized man to reject 
clothing a portion of the year, instances are not want- 
ing where it has been made the basis of would-be pro- 
found ethnological hypotheses. 

In their athletic sports they differed in no notable 
degree from other tribes. A favorite game was that 
of ball. In playing this they erected a pole about fifty 
feet in height in the centre of the public square; on 
the summit of this was a mark, which the winning 
party struck with the ball.^ The very remarkable 
"pillar'' at the Creek town of Atasse on the Talla- 
poosa river, one day's journey from the Coosa, which 
puzzled the botanist Bartram,^ and which a living 
antiquarian of high reputation has connected with 
phallic worship,^ was probably one of these solitary 

1 Basanier, Hist. Not, p. 7. ^ Travels, p. 456. 

3 E. G. Squier, Aborig. Mon. of N. Y., App. pp. 135-7; 
Serpent Symbol, pp. 90, 94, 95. 



TEIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 123 

trunks, or else the '^red painted great war-pole" of 
the southern Indians,* usually about the same height. 

In some parts they had rude musical instruments, 
drums, and a sort of flute fashioned from the wild 
cane,2 the hoarse screeching of which served to testify 
their joy on festive occasions. A primitive pipe of 
like construction, the earliest attempt at melody, but 
producing anything but sounds melodious, was com- 
mon among the later Chicasaws'' and the Indians of 
Central America.* 

Their agriculture was of that simple character com- 
mon to most North American tribes. They planted 
twice in the year, in June or July and March, crops of 
maize, beans, and other vegetables, working the ground 
with such indifferent instruments as sticks pointed, or 
with fish bones and clam-shells adjusted to them.^ Yet 
such abundant return rewarded this slight toil that, 
says De Soto,^ the largest army could be supported 
without exhausting the resources of the land. In 
accordance with their monarchical government the 
harvests were deposited in public granaries, whence it 
was dispensed by the chief to every family propor- 
tionately to the number of its members. When the 
stock was exhausted before the succeeding crop was 
ripe, which was invariably the case, forsaking their 
fixed abodes, they betook themselves to the woods, 

1 Adair, Hist. N. Am. Inds., p. 205. 

2 They came to meet Narvaez playing on such flutes, ** ta- 
nendo unas Flautas de Cafla," Cabeza de Vaca, Naufragios, 
cap. V. 

3 Bernard Romans, p. 62. 

4 Francisco Ximenez, Origen de los Indios de Guatemala, 
p. 179. 

* De Morgues, Brevis Historia, Tab. XXI. 

^ Lettre 6crite par I'Adelantade Soto, etc., p. 46. 



124 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

where an abundance of game, quantities of fish and 
oysters, and the many esculent vegetables indigenous 
in that latitude, offered them an easy and not precarious 
subsistence. 

Their dwellings were collected into a village, circu- 
lar in form, and surrounded with posts twice the height 
of a man, set firmly in the ground, with interfolding 
entrance. If we may rely on the sketches of De Mor- 
gues, taken from memory, the houses were all round 
and the floors level with the ground, except that of the 
chief, which occupied the centre of the village, was in 
shape an oblong parallelogram, and the floor some- 
what depressed below the surface level. * In other 
parts the house for the ruler and his immediate atten- 
dants was built on an elevation either furnished by 
nature or else artificially constructed. Such was the 
(( hie mount made with hands,'' described by the Por- 
tuguese Gentleman at the spot where De Soto landed, 
and which is supposed by some to be the one still seen 
in the village of Tampa. Some of these were of 
sufiicient size to accommodate twenty dwellings, with 
roads leading to the summits on one side, and quite 
inaccessible on all others. 

Most of the houses were mere 'sheds or log huts 
thatched with the leaf of the palmetto, a plant subser- 
vient to almost as many purposes as the bread-fruit 
tree of the South Sea Islands. Occasionally, however, 
the whole of a village was comprised in a single enor- 
mous habitation, circular in form, from fifty to one 
hundred feet in diameter. Into its central area, which 
was sometimes only partially roofed, opened numerous 

1 Brevis Historia, Tab. XXX., and compare the Histoire 
Memorable, p. 261. 



TRIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 125 

cabins, from eight to twelve feet square, arranged 
around the circumference, each the abode of a separate 
family. Such was the edifice seen by Cabeza de Vaca 
"that could contain more than three hundred persons'' 
(que cabrian mas de trecientas personas) ;* such that 
found by De Soto in the town of Ochile on the fron- 
tiers of the province of Yitachuco ; such those on the 
north-eastern coast of the peninsula described by Jona- 
than Dickinson. 3 

The agreeable temperature that prevails in those 
latitudes throughout the year did away with much of 
the need of clothing, and consequently their simple 
wardrobe seems to have included nothing beyond 
deerskins dressed and colored with vegetable dyes, and 
a light garment made of the long Spanish moss 
{^Tillandda iisneoides), the gloomy drapery of the 
cypress swamps, or of the leaves of the palmetto. A 
century and a half later Captain Nairn describes them 
with little or no clothing, " all painted,'' and with no 
arms but spears, " harpoos," pointed with fish bones. 



§ 3. — Religion. 

It is usual to consider the religion and mythology 
of a nation of weighty import in determining its 
origin ; but to him, who regards these as the spon- 
taneous growth of the human mind, brought into ex- 
istence by the powers of nature, nourished by the 
mental constitution of man, and shaped by external 

1 Naufragios, cap. III. 

2 God's Protecting Providence, p. 62. This style of build- 
ing was common among the Caribs, and may have been de- 
rived from them. 

11* 



126 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

circumstances, all of which are <^ everywhere different 
yet everywhere the same/' general similarities of creed 
and of rite appear but deceptive bases for ethnological 
theories. The same great natural forces are eternally 
at work, above, around and beneath us, producing 
similar results in matter, educing like conceptions in 
mind. He who attentively compares 'any two mytho- 
logies whatever, will find so many points of identity 
and resemblance that he will readily appreciate the 
capital error of those who deduce original unity of 
race from natural conformity of rite. Such is the 
fallacy of those who would derive the ancient popula- 
tion of the American continent from a fragment of an 
insignificant Semitic tribe in Syria ; and of the 
Catholic missionaries, who imputed variously to St. 
Thomas and to Satan the many religious ceremonies 
and legends, closely allied to those of their own faith, 
found among the Aztecs and Guatemalans. 

In investigations of this nature, therefore, we must 
critically distinguish between the local and the univer- 
sal elements of religions. Do we aim by analysis to 
arrive at the primal theistic notions of the human 
mind and their earliest outward expression? The 
latter alone can lead us. Or is it our object to use 
mythology only as a handmaid to history, an index of 
migrations, and a record of external influence ? The 
impressions of local circumstances are our only guides. 

The tribes of the New World, like other early and 
uncivilized nations, chose the sun as the object of 
their adoration ; either holding it to be itself the Deity, 
as did most of the indwellers of the warm zones, or, 
as the natives of colder climes, only the most august 
object of His creation, a noble emblem of Himself. 
Intimately connected with both, ever recurring in some 



TRIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 127 

one of its Protean formS; is the worship of the recip- 
rocal principle. 

The Floridian Indians belonged to the first of these 
classes. They worshipped the sun and moon, and in 
their honor held such simple festivals as are common 
in the earlier stages of religious development. Among 
these the following are worthy of specification. 

After a successful foray they elevated the scalps of 
their enemies on poles decked with garlands, and for 
three days and three nights danced and sang around 
them.^ The wreaths here probably had the same 
symbolical significance as those which adorned the 
Athenian Hermes,*^ or which the Maypures of the 
Orinoco used at their weddings, or those with which 
the northern tribes ornamented rough blocks of stone. 

Their principal festival was at the first corn-planting, 
about the beginning of March. At this ceremony a 
deer was sacrificed to the sun, and its body, or accord- 
ing to others its skin stufi'ed with fruits and grain, 
was elevated on a tall pole or tree stripped of its 
branches, an object of religious veneration, and around 
which were danced and sung the sacred choruses;^ a 
custom also found by Loskiel among the Delawares,'* 
and which, recogniziDg the deer or stag as a solar em- 
blem, surmounting the phallic symbol, the upright 
stake, has its parallel in Peruvian heliolatry and 
classical mythology. 

The feast of Toya, though seen by the French north 

1 Basanier, Hist. Not, pp. 8, 101. 

* See Mackay, Progress of the Intellect, Vol. II., p. 143, 
note 152, and authorities there quoted. 

3 Brevis Historia, Tab. XXXV. ; Baumgarten, Gescbichte 
von Amerika, B. I., s. 87. 

4 Klemm, Culturgeschichtc der Menscheit, B. II , 8. 179. 



128 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

of the peninsula and perhaps peculiar to the tribes 
there situate, presents some remarkable peculiarities. 
It occurred about the end of May, probably when the 
green corn became eatable. Those who desired to 
take part in it, having apparelled themselves in various 
attire, assembled on the appointed day in the council 
house. Here three priests took charge of them, and 
led them to the great square, which they danced 
around thrice, yelling and beating drums. Suddenly 
at a given signal from the priests they broke away 
^'Wke unbridled horses'^ (commechevaux debridez), 
plunging into the thickest forests. Here they re- 
mained three days without touching food or drink, en- 
gaged in the performance of mysterious duties. Mean- 
while the women of the tribe, weeping and groaning, 
bewailed them as if dead, tearing their hair and 
cutting themselves and their daughters with sharp 
stones; as the blood flowed from these frightful 
gashes, they caught it on their fingers, and, crying out 
loudly three times he To7/a, threw it into the air. At 
the expiration of the third day the men returned ; all 
was joy again ; they embraced their friends as though 
back from a long journey ; a dance was held on the 
public square; and all did famous justice to a boun- 
teous repast spread in readiness.* The analogy that 
these rites bear to the Aiowaca and similar obser- 
vances of the ancients is very striking, and doubtless 
they had a like significance. The singular predomi- 
nance of the number three, which we shall also find 
repeated in other connections, cannot escape the most 
cursory reader. Nor is this a rare or exceptional in- 
stance where it occurs in American religions; it is 

' Easanier, Hist. Not., pp. 43 sqq. 



TEIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTUEY. 129 

bound up in the most sacred myths and holiest ob- 
servances all over the continent.^ Obscure though 
the reason may be, certain it is that the numbers three, 
four, and seven, are hallowed by their intimate con- 
nection with the most occult rites and profoundest 
mysteries of every religion of the globe, and not less 
so in America than in the older continent. 

In the worship of the moon, which in all mythologies 
represents the female principle, their rites were curious 
and instructive. Of those celebrated at full moon by 
the tribes on the eastern coast, Dickinson, an eye- 
witness, has left us the following description : — " The 
moon being up, an Indian who performeth their cere- 
monies, stood out, looking full at the moon, making a 
hideous noise and crying out, acting like a mad-man 
for the space of half an hour, all the Indians being 
silent till he had done ; after which they all made a 
fearful noise, some like the barking of a dogg or wolf, 
and other strange sounds; after this one gets a logg 
and setts himself down ; holding the stick or logg 
upright on the ground, and several others getting about 
him, made a hideous noise, singing to our amazement.^' 
This they kept up till midnight, the women taking 
part.a 

On the day of new moon they placed upright in the 
ground '' a staff almost eight foot long having a broad 
arrow on the end thereof, and thence half-way painted 
red and white, like unto a barber's-pole ; in the middle 
of the staff is fixed a piece of wood like unto the thigh, 
legg, and foot of a man, and the lower part thereof is 

1 On the Trinity in aboriginal American religions, see 
Count Stolberg in the Wiener Yahrbiicher dcr Literatur, B. 
XVI., s. 278. 

2 God's Protecting Providence, p. 12. 



130 FLOKIDIAN PENINSULA. 

painted black." At its base was placed a basket con- 
taining six rattles; each taking one and making a 
violent noise, the six chief men of the village including 
the priest danced and sang around the pole till they 
were fatigued, when others, painted in various devices, 
took their place ; and so on in turn. These festivities 
continued three days, the day being devoted to rest and 
feasting, the night to the dance and fasting; during 
which time no woman must look upon them.^ How dis- 
tinctly we recognize in this the worship of the reciprocal 
principle ! — that ever novel mystery of reproduction 
shadowed forth by a thousand ingenious emblems, by 
a myriad strange devices, all replete with a deep sig- 
nificance to him who is versed in the subtleties of 
symbolism. Even among these wretched savages we 
find the colors black, white, and red, retain that solemn 
import so usual in oriental mythi. 

The representation of a leg used in this observance 
must not be considered a sign of idolatry, for, though 
the assertion, advanced, by both Adair^^^^and Klemm,^ 
that no idols whatever were worshipped by the hunting- 
tribes, is unquestionably erroneous and can be disproved 
by numerous examples, in the peninsula of Florida 
they seem to have been totally unknown. The image 
of a bird, made of wood, seen at the village where De 
Soto first landed, cannot be regarded as such, but was 

1 God's Protecting Providence, pp. 38, 39. 

^ Hist, of the North Am. Indians, p. 22. He embraces all 
tribes " from Hudson Bay to the Mississippi," and adds that 
they had no lascivious or Priapean images or rites, in which he 
is equally at fault. 

3 Man hat weder bei den Sudaraericanern noch bei den 
Nordlichen eigentliche Gotzenbilder oder I dole be- 
merkt. Culturgeschichte der Menschheit, B. IL, s. 172. 
This is confined of course to the " Yagervolker." 



TRIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 131 

a symbol common among several of the southern tribes, 
and does not appear to have had any special religious 
meaning. 

Human sacrifice, so rare among the Algic nations, 
was not unknown, though carried to by no means such 
an appalling extent as among the native accolents of the 
Mississippi. The chief of the Caloosas immolated every 
year one person, usually a Christian, to the principle 
of evil (al Demonio)^, as a propitiary offering; hence 
on one old map, that of De L'Isle, they are marked 
<< Les Carlos Antropophages." Likewise around the 
St. 6^ohns they were accustomed to sacrifice the first- 
born son, killing him by blows on the head ;2 but it is 
probable this only obtained to a limited observance. 
In all other cases their ofi'erings consisted of grains 
and fruits. 

The veneration of the serpent, which forms such an 
integral part of all nature religions, and relics of which 
are retained in the most perfected, is reported to have 
prevailed among these tribes. When a soldier of De 
Gourgues had killed one, the natives cut off its head 
and carried it away with great care and respect (aveo 
vn grand soin et diligence). ^ The same superstitious 
fear of injuring these reptiles was retained in later days 
by the Seminoles.* 

The priests constituted an important class in the 
community. Their generic appellation, javas, jauasj 

1 Barcia, Ensayo Cron. Ano 1566, p. 94; the Port. Gent, in 
Hackluyt, Vol. V. p. 491, mentions this as existing among 
the tribes near Tampa Bay. 

^ Moris apud illos est primogenitura masculum Regi vic- 
timum oiferre, etc. Brevis Historia, Tab. XXXIV. 

3 La Reprinse de la Floride, p. 204. 

^ Wm. Bartram, Travels, p. 263, and compare Adair, Hist, 
of the North Am. Inds. pp. 238-9. 



132 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

jaruars, jaovas, jaonas, jaiias, Javiinas, — for all these 
and more orthographies are given — has been properly 
derived by Adair from the meaningless exclamation 
yah-wahj used as name, interjection, and invocation by 
the southern Indians. It is not, however, an etymon 
borrowed from the Hebrew as he and Boudinot argue, 
but consists of two slightly varied enunciations of the 
first and simplest vowel sound; as such, it oonstitutes 
the natural utterance of the infant in its earliest wail, 
and, as the easiest cry of relief of the frantic devotee 
all over the world, is the principal constituent of the 
proper name of the deity in many languages. Like 
the medas of the Algonquins and the medicine men of 
other tribes, they united in themselves the priest, the 
physician, and the sorcerer. In sickness they were 
always ready with their bag of herbs and simples, and 
so much above contempt was their skill in the healing 
art that not unfrequently they worked cures of a 
certain troublesome disease sadly prevalent among the 
Indians and said by some to have originated from them. 
Magicians were they of such admirable subtlety as to 
restore what was lost, command the unwilling rain 
from heaven in time of drought, and foretell the 
position of an enemy or the result of a battle. As 
priests, they led and ordered festivals, took part in 
grave deliberations, and did their therapeutic art fail 
to cure, were ready with spiritual power to console, in 
the emergencies of pain and death. 
• Their sepulchral rites were various. Along the 
St. Johns, when a chief died they interred the corpse 
with appropriate honors, raised a mound two or three 
feet high above the grave, surrounded it with arrows 
fixed in the ground, and on its summit deposited the 



TRIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 183 

conch, le Jianap, from which he was accustomed to 
drink. The tribe fasted and mourned three days and 
three nights, and for six moons women were employed 
to bewail his death, lamenting loudly thrice each day 
at sunrise, at mid-day, and at sunset. ^ All his posses- 
sions were placed in his dwelling, and the whole 
burnt ; a custom arising from a superstitious fear of 
misfortune consequent on using the chattels of the 
dead, a sentiment natural to the unphilosophic mind. 
It might not be extravagant to suppose that the shell 
had the same significance as the urn so frequent in the 
tombs of Egypt and the sepulchres of Magna Graecia, 
" an emblem of the hope that should cheer the dwell- 
ings of the dead."2 The burial of the priests was 
like that of the chiefs, except that the ^ot chosen was 
in their own houses, and the whole burnt over them, 
resembling in this a practice universal among the 
Caribs, and reappearing among the Natchez, Chero- 
kees and Arkansas, (Taencas). 

Among the Caloosas and probably various other 
tribes, the corpses were placed in the open air, 
apparently for the purpose of obtaining the bones 
when the flesh had sufficiently decomposed, which, 
like the more northern tribes, they interred in common 
sepulchres, heaping dirt over them so as to form 
mounds. It was as a guard to watch over these 
exposed bodies, and to prevent their desecration by 
wild beasts, that Juan Ortiz, the Spaniard of Seville, 
liberated by De Soto, had been employed while a 
prisoner among the nations of the Gulf Coast. 

^ Brevis Historia, Tab. XL. Basanier, Hist. Not., pp. 10, 11. 
* Mack ay, Progress of the Intellect, Vol. II., p. lliU. 

12 



134 FLOEIDIAN PENINSULA. 



§ 4. — Language. 

A philological examination of the Floridian tribes, 
■which would throw so much light on their origin, 
affiliation, and many side-questions of general interest, 
must for the present remain unattempted, save in a 
very inadequate manner. Not but that there exists 
material, ample and well-arranged material, but it is 
not yet within reach. I have already spoken of the 
works of the Father Pareja, the learned and laborious 
Franciscan, and of the good service he did the mis- 
sionaries by his works on the Timuquana tongue. Not 
a single copy of any of these exists in the United 
States, and till a republication puts them within reach 
of the linguist, little can be done towards clearing up 
the doubt that now hangs over the philology of this 
portion of our country. What few extracts are given 
by Hervas, hardly warrant a guess as to their classi- 
fication. 

The name Timuquana, otherwise spelled Timuaca, 
Timagoa, and Timuqua, in which we recognize the 
Thimogona of the French colonists, was applied to the 
tongue prevalent in the immediate vicinity of St. 
Augustine and toward the mouth of the St. Johns. It 
was also held in estimation as a noble and general lan- 
guage, a sort of ling 2ia frajica, throughout the penin- 
sula. Pareja remarks, <' Those Indians that diflFer 
most in words and are roughest in their enunciation 
(mas toscos), namely those of Tucururu^ and of Santa 

1 Tucururu or Tacatacuru was on the Atlantic coast south 
of St. Augustine, between it and Santa Lucea. (Barcia, Ea. 
Cron., p. 121.) 



TKIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 135 

Lucea de Acuera, in order to be understood by the 
natives of the southern coast, who speak another 
tongue, use the dialect of Mo^cama, which is the most 
polished of all (la mas politica), and that of Timu- 
quana, as I myself have proved, for they understood 
me when I preached to them/'^ 

This language is remarkable for its singularly 
numerous changes in the common names of individuals, 
dependent on mutual relationship and the varying cir- 
cumstances of life, which, though not the only instance 
of the kind in American tongues, is here extraordi- 
narily developed, and in the opinion of Adelung seems 
to hint at some previous, more cultivated condition (in 
gewissen Hinsicht einen cultivirteren Zustand des 
Volks anzeigen mochte).^ For example, id, father, 
was used only during his life ', if he left descendants 
be was spoken of as siki, but if he died without issue, 
as nartbica-pasano : the father called his son chirico- 
virOf other males kie, and all females ulena. Such 
variations in dialect, or rather quite different dialects 
in the same family, extraordinary as it may seem to the 
civilized man, were not very uncommon among the war- 
like, erratic hordes of America. They are attributable 
to various causes. The esoteric language of the priests 
of Peru and Virginia might have been either meaning- 
less incantations, as those that of yore resounded 
around the Pythian and Delphic shrines, or the disjecta 
membra of some ancient tongue, like the Dionysiac 
songs of Athens. When as among the Abipones of 
Paraguay, the Natchez of Louisiana, and the Incas of 

1 Hervas, Catalogo de las Lenguas de las naciones conocidas, 
Tom. I. p. 387. Madrid, 1800-1805. 

* Mithridates, oder Allgemeine Sprachenkunde, B. Ill , s. 
285. 



136 FLORTDIAN PENINSULA. 

Peru, the noble or dominant race has its own peculiar 
tongue, we must impute it to foreign invasion, and a 
subsequent rigorous definition of the line of cast and 
prevention of amalgamation. Another consequence 
of war occurs when the women and children of the 
defeated race are alone spared, especially should the 
males be much absent and separated from the females; 
then each sex has its peculiar language, which may be 
preserved for generations ; such was found to be the 
case on some of the Garibbee islands and on the coast 
of Guiana. Also certa insuperstitious observances, the 
avoidance of evil omens, and the mere will of indi- 
viduals, not seldom worked changes of this nature. 
In such cases these dialects stand as waymarks in the 
course of time, referring us back to some period of 
unity, of strife, or of migration, whence they proceeded, 
and as such, require the greatest caution to be exer- 
cised in deducing from them any general ethnographi- 
cal inferences. 

What we are to judge in the present instance is not 
yet easy to say. Hervas does not hesitate to assert 
that abundant proof exists to ally this with the Guara- 
nay (Carib) stock. Besides a likeness in some ety- 
mons, he takes pains to lay before the reader certain 
similar rites of intermarriage, quotes Barcia to show 
that Carib colonies actually did land on Florida, and 
adds an ideal sketch of the Antigua configuracion del 
golfo Mexicano y del mar Adantico, thereon proving 
how readily in ancient ages, under altered geological 
conditions, such a migration could have been efifected. 

Without altogether differing from the learned abbe 
in his position, for it savors strongly of truth, it 
might be well, with what material we have at hand, 
to see whether other analogies could be discovered. 



TRIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 137 

The pronominal adjectives and the first three numerals 
are as follows ; — 



na 


mine 


mile 


our 


ye 


thine 


yaye 


your 


mima 


his 


lama 


their 




minecotamano 


one 






naiuchanima 


two 






nakapumima 


three 





Now, bearing in mind that the pronouns of the first 
and second persons and the numerals are primitive 
words, and that in American philology it is a rule 
almost without exception that personal pronouns and 
pronominal adjectives are identical in their consonants,^ 
we have five primitive words before us. On compar- 
ing them with other aboriginal tongues, the n of the 
first person singular is found common to the Algon- 
quin Lenape family, but in all other points they are 
such contrasts that this must pass for an accidental 
similarity. A resemblance may be detected between 
the Uchee nowah, two, nokah, three, and naiucha- 
mima, wa/jct-pumima. Taken together, iti-na, my 
father, sounds not unlike the Cherokee etawta, and 
Adelung notices the slight difi'erence there is between 
niha, eldest brother, and the Illinois nika, my brother. 
But these are trifling compared to the afiinities to the 
Carib, and I should not be astonished if a comparison 
of Pareja with Gilti and D'Orbigny placed beyond 
doubt its relationship to this family of languages. 
Should this brief notice give rise to such an investiga- 
tion, my object in inserting it will have been ac- 
complished. 

The French voyagers occasionally noted down a 

1 Gallatin, Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc, Vol. II., p. 178. 
12* 



138 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

word or two of the tongues they encountered, and in- 
deed Laudonniere assures us that he could understand 
the greater part of what they said. Such were tapagu 
topola, little baskets of corn, sieroa pira, red metal, 
antipola honnassori, a term of welcome meaning, bro- 
ther, friend, or something of that sort (qui vaut autant 
a dire comme frere, amy, ou chose semblable).^ Al- 
bert Gallatin^ subjected these to a critical examination, 
but deciphered none except the last. This he derives 
from the Choktah itapola, allies, literally, they help 
each other, while '< in Muskohgee, inhissej is, his 
friends, and ponhisse, our friends," which seems a sat- 
isfactory solution. It was used as a friendly greeting 
both at the mouth of the St. Johns and thirty leagues 
north of that river; but this does not necessarily 
prove the natives of those localities belonged to the 
Chahta family, as an expression of this sort would 
naturally gain wide prevalence among very diverse 
tribes. 

Fontanedo has also preserved some words of the 
more southern languages, but none of much importance. 

1 Basanier, Hist. Not. pp. 67, 69, 72 ; Coppie d'une Lettre 
venant de la Floride, p. 244. 

2 Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc, Vol. II., p. 106. 



LATER TEIBES. 139 

CHAPTER IV. 

LATER TRIBES. 

§ 1. Yemassees. — Ucliees. — Apalachicolos. — Migrations north- 
ward. 
2 2. Seminoles. 

§ 1. — Yemassees and other Tribes. 

About the close of the seventeenth century, when 
the tribes who originally possessed the peninsula had 
become dismembered and reduced by prolonged con- 
flicts with the whites and between themselves, various 
bands from the more northern regions, driven from 
their ancestral homes partly by the English and partly 
by a spirit of restlessness, sought to fix their habita- 
tions in various parts of Florida. 

The earliest of these were the Savannahs or Ye- 
massees (Yammassees, Jamasees, Eamuses,) a branch 
of the Muskogeh or Creek nation, who originally in- 
habited the shores of the Savannah river and the low 
country of Carolina. Here they generally maintained 
friendly relations with the Spanish, who at one period 
established missions among them, until the arrival of 
the English. These purchased their land, won their 
friendship, and embittered them against their former 
friends. As the colony extended, they gradually 
migrated southward, obtaining a home by wresting 
from their red and white possessors the islands and 
mainland along the coast of Georgia and Florida. 
The most disastrous of these inroads was in 1686, 



140 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

when they drove the Spanish colonists from all the 
islands north of the St. Johns, and laid waste the 
missions and plantations that had been commenced 
upon them. Subsequently, spreading over the savan- 
nas of Alachua and the fertile plains of Middle Florida, 
they conjoined with the fragments of older nations to 
form separate tribes, as the Chias, Canaake, Toraocos 
or Atimucas, and others. Of these the last-mentioned 
were the most important. They dwelt between the St. 
Johns and the Suwannee, and possessed the towns of 
Jurlo Noca, Alachua, Nuvoalla. and others. At the 
devastation of their settlements by the English and 
Creeks in 1704, 1705 and 1706, they removed to the 
shores of Musquito Lagoon, sixty-five miles south of 
St. Augustine, where they had a village, long known 
as the Pueblo de Atimucas. 

A portion of the tribe remained in Carolina, dwell- 
ing on Port Koyal Island, whence they made frequent 
attacks on the Christian Indians of Florida, carrying 
them into captivity, and selling them to the English. 
In April, 1715, however, instigated as was supposed by 
the Spanish, they made a sudden attack on the neigh- 
boring settlements, but were repulsed and driven from 
the country. They hastened to St. Augustine, '< where 
they were received with bells ringing and guns firing,"^ 
and given a spot of ground within a mile of the city. 
Here they resided till the attack of Colonel Palmer in 
1727, who burnt their village and destroyed most of 
its inhabitants. Some, however, escaped, and to the 
number of twenty men, lived in St. Augustine about 
the middle of the century. Finally, this last miserable 

' Hewitt, Hist, of S. Car., Vol. I., p. 222. He gives 1714 
as the date of this occurrence. But see CarroH's Hist. Colls, 
of S. Car., Vol. II., p. 353. 



LATEK TRIBES. 141 

remnant was enslaved by the Seminoles, and sunk in 
the Ocklawaha branch of that tribe.* 

Originating from near the same spot as the Yemas- 
sees were the Uchees. When first encountered by the 
whites, they possessed the country on the Carolina side 
of the Savannah river for more than one hundred and 
fifty miles, commencing sixty miles from its mouth, 
and, consequently, just west of the Yemassees. Closely 
associated with them here, were the Palachoclas or i 
Apalachicolos. About the year 1716, nearly all the 
latter, together with a portion of the Uchees, removed 
to the south under the guidance of Cherokee Leechee, 
their chief, and located on the banks of the stream 
called by the English the Flint river, but which subse- 
quently received the name of Apalachicola. 

The rest of the Uchees clung tenaciously to their 
ancestral seats in spite of the threats and persuasion 
of the English, till after the middle of the century, 
when a second and complete migration took place. 
Instead of joining their kinsmen, however, they kept 
more to the east, occupying sites first on the head- 
waters of the Altamaha, then on the Santilla, (St. 
Tillis,) St. Marys, and St, Johns, where we hear of 
them as early as 1786. At the cession to the United 
States, (1821,) they had a village ten miles south of 
Volusia, near Spring Gardens. At this period, though 
intermarrying with their neighbors, they still main- 
tained their identity, and when, at the close of the 
Seminole war in 1845, two hundred and fifty Indians 

1 On the Yemassees consult Hewitt, ubi supra ; Barcia, En. 
Cron. ABo 1686 ; the tracts in Carroll's Hist. Colls, of S. 
Car., Vol. II., pp. 106, 246, 353, 355; Roberts, Hist, of 
Florida, p. 15 ; Notices of E. Florida, by a recent traveller, 
p. 57. 



142 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

embarked at Tampa for New Orleans and the West, it 
is said a number of them belonged to this tribe, and 
probably constituted the last of the race.* 

Both on the Apalachicola and Savannah rivers this 
tribe was remarkable for its unusually agricultural 
and civilized habits, though of a tricky and dishonest 
character. Bartram'^ gives the following description of 
their town of Chata on the Chatauchee : — '' It is the 
most compact and best situated Indian town I ever 
saw; the habitations are large and neatly built; the 
walls of the houses are constructed of a wooden frame, 
then lathed and plastered inside and out, with a red- 
ish, well-tempered clay or mortar, which gives them 
the appearance of red brick walls, and these houses are 
neatly covered or roofed with cypress bark or shingles 
of that tree." This, together with the Savanuca town 
on the Tallapoosa or Oakfuske river, comprised the 
whole of the tribe at that time resident in this vicinity. 

Their language was called the Savanuca tongue, from 
the town of that name. It was peculiar to themselves 
and radically different from the Creek tongue or Lingo, 
by which they were surrounded ; '< It seems,'^ says Bar- 
tram, '^to be a more northern tongue;" by which he 
probably means it sounded harsher to the ear. It 
was said to be a dialect of the Shawanese, but a com- 
parison of the vocabularies indicates no connection, and 

1 On the migrations of this tribe consult the Colls, of the 
Georgia Hist. Soc. Vol. I., pp. 145-6; Vol. II., pp. 61, 71 ; 
John Filson; The Disc, Settlement, and Pres. State of Ken- 
tuck6, App. 3, p. 84; Gallatin in Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc, Vol. 
XL, pp. 84, 95; Notices of E. Fla., by a recent traveller, p. 
59 ; Narrative of Oceola Nikkanoche, p. 70 et seq. ; Moll's 
Map of the Northern Parts of America, and Sprague's Hist, 
of the Florida War. 

2 Travels, pp. 388-9, and see p. 486. 



LATER TRIBES. 143 

it appears more probable that it stands quite alone in 
the philology of that part of the continent. 

While these movements were taking place from the 
north toward the south, there were also others in a 
contrary direction. One of ^he principal of these 
occurred while Francisco de la Guerra was Governor- 
General of Florida, (1684-1690,) in consequence of 
an attempt made by Don Juan Marquez to remove the 
natives to the West India islands and enslave them. 
We have no certain knowledge how extensive it was, 
though it seems to have left quite a number of mis- 
sions deserted. 1 

What has excited more general attention is the 
tradition of the Shawnees, (Shawanees, Sawannees, 
Shawanos,) that they originally came from the Su- 
wannee river in Florida, whose name has been said to 
be " a corruption of Shawanese," and that they were 
driven thence by the Cherokees.^ That such was the 
origin of the name is quite false, as its present appel- 
lation is merely a corruption of the Spanish San JuaUy 
the river having been called the Little San Juan, in 
contradistinction to the St. Johns, (el rio de San Juan,) 
on the eastern coast.^ Nor did they ever live in this 
region, but were scions of the Savannah stem of the 
Creeks, accolents of the river of that name, and conse- 
quently were kinsmen of the Yemassees. 

1 Barcia, Ensayo Cronologico, Aiio 1686, p. 287. 

2 Jedediah Morse, Rep. on Ind. Affairs, App. p. 93, Archreol- 
Amer., Vol. I., p. 273, and others. 

3 Other forms of the same are Little St. Johns, Little Sa- 
vanna, Seguano, Suannee, Swanuee. It was also called the 
Carolinian river. 



144 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 



§ 2. — The Seminoles. 

The Creek nation, so called says Adair from the 
number of streams that intersected the lowlands they 
inhabited, more properly Muskogeh, (corrupted into 
Muscows,) sometimes Western Indians, as they were 
supposed to have come later than the Uchees,^ and on 
the early maps Cowetas (Couitias,) and Allibamons 
from their chief towns, was the last of those waves of 
migration which poured across the Mississippi for 
several centuries prior to Columbus. Their hunting 
grounds at one period embraced a vast extent of 
country reaching from the Atlantic coast almost to the 
Mississippi. After the settlement of the English among 
them, they diminished very rapidly from various 
causes, principally wars and the ravages of the small- 
pox, till about 1740 the whole number of their war- 
riors did not exceed fifteen hundred. The majority of 
these belonged to that branch of the nation, called 
from its more southern position the Lower Creeks, of 
mongrel origin, made up of the fragments of numerous 
reduced and broken tribes, dwelling north and north- 
west of the Floridian peninsula. ^ 

When Govenor Moore of South Carolina made Lis 
attack on St. Augustine, he included in his complement 
a considerable band of this nation. After he had been 



1 H. R. Schoolcraft, Notes on the Iroquois, p. 161. Adair, 
however, says they recorded themselves to be terroe filii. 
(Hist. N. Am. Inds., p. 257, but compare p. 195.) 

2 For the individual nations composing the confederacy see 
Romans, Hist, of Fla., p. 00; Roberts, Hist, of FU., p. 13, 
and Adair, p. 257. 



LATER TRIBES. ' 145 

repulsed they kept possession of all the land north of 
the St. JohnSj and, uniting with certain negroes from 
the English and Spanish colonieSj formed the nucleus 
of the nation, subsequently called Ishti semoH, wild 
men,i corrupted into Seminolies and Seminoles, who 
subsequently possessed themselves of the whole penin- 
sula and still remain there. Others were introduced 
by the English in their subsequent invasions, by 
Governor Moore, by Col. Palmer, and by General 
Oglethorpe. As early as 1732, they had founded the 
town of Coweta on the Flint river, and laid claim to 
all the countr}^ from there to St. Augustine. ^ They 
soon began to make incursions independent of the 
whites, as that led by Toonahowi in 1741, as that which 
in 1750, under the guidance of SecofFee, forsook the 
banks of the Apalachioola, and settled the fertile 
savannas of Alachua, and as the band that in 1808 
followed Micco Hadjo to the vicinity of Tallahassie. 
They divided themselves into seven independent bands, 
the Latchivue or Latchione, inhabiting the level banks 
of the St. Johns, and the sand hills to the west, near 
the ancient fort Poppa, (San Francisco de Pappa,) 
opposite Picolati, the Oklevuaha, or Oklewaha on the 
river that bears their name, the Chokechatti, the 
Pyaklekaha, the Talehouyana or Fatehennyaha, the 
Topkelake, and a seventli, whose name I cannot find. 
According to a writer in 1791,3 they lived in a state 

1 Giddings (Exiles of Florida, p. 3) gives the incorrect 
translation "runaways," and adds, "it was originally used 
in reference to the Exiles long before the Seminole Indians 
separated from the Creeks." The Upper Creeks called them 
Aulochawan, (American State Papers, Vol.V., p. 813.) 

2 Establishment of the Colony of Georgia, pp. 10, 12, in 
Peter Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I. 

3 Major C. Swan, in Schoolcraft's Hist, of the Indian Tribes. 
Vol. v., pp. 200, 272. 

13 



146 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

of frightful barbarity and indigence, and were " poor 
and miserable beyond description/' When the mother 
was burdened with too many children, she hesitated 
not to strangle the new-born infant, without remorse 
for her cruelty or odium among her companions. This 
is the only instance that I have ever met in the 
history of the American Indians where infanticide was 
in vogue for these reasons, and it gives us a fearfully 
low idea of the social and moral condition of those 
induced by indolence to resort to it. Yet other and 
by far the majority of writers give us a very different 
opinion, assure us that they built comfortable houses 

1 of logs, made a good, well-baked article of pottery, 1 
raised plenteous crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, sweet 
potatoes, tobacco, swamp and upland rice, peas, melons 
and squashes, while in an emergency the potatoe-like 
roots of the china brier or red coonta, the tap root of 
the white coonta,^ the not unpleasant cabbage of the 
palma royal and palmetto, and the abundant game and 
fish, would keep at a distance all real want.^ 

As may readily be supposed from their vagrant and 
unsettled mode of life, their religious ideas were very 

^ simple. Their notion of a God was vague and ill- 
defined; they celebrated certain festivals at corn 
planting and harvest; they had a superstition regard- 
ing the transmigration of souls and for this purpose 
held the infant over the face of the dying mother ;3 

1 Smilax, China, and Zamia pumila. 

2 On the civilization of the Seminoles, consult \Vm. Bar- 
tram, Travels, pp. 192-3, 304, the American Jour, of Science, 
Vol. IX., pp. 133, 135, and XXXV., pp. 58-9; Notices of E. 
Fla ,by a recent Traveller, and the works on the Florida War. 

' Narrative of Oceola Nikkanoche, p. 75. The author sup- 
posed this was to receive the injunctions of the djing mother, 
but more probably it sprang from that belief in a metasoma- 



LATER TRIBES. 147 

and from their great reluctance to divulge their real 
names, it is probable they believed in a personal 
guardian spirit, through fear of offending whom a like 
hesitation prevailed among other Indian tribes, as well 
as among the ancient Romans, and, strange to say, is 
in force to this day among the lower class of Italians.^ 
They usually interred the dead, and carefully concealed 
the grave for fear it should be plundered and dese- 
crated by enemies, though at other times, as after a 
battle, they piled the slain indiscriminately together, 
and heaped over them a mound of earth. One in- 
stance is recorded^ where a female slave of a deceased 
princess was decapitated on her tomb to be her com- 
panion and servant on the journey to the land of the 
dead. 

A comparison of the Seminole with the Muskogeh 
vocabulary affords a most instructive lesson to the 
philologist. With such rapidity did the former un- 
dergo a vital change that as early as 1791 << it was 
hardly understood by the Upper Creeks. "^ The later 
changes are still more marked and can be readily 

iosis wliicli prevailed, and produced analogous customs in 
other tribes. See La Hontan, Voiages, Tome I , p. 282 ; 
♦♦ Brebeuf, Relation de la Nouv. France pour I'an 1636, ch. 
IX." Pedro de Cieza, Travs. in Peru, eh. XXXIL, p. 86 in 
Steven's Collection. 

1 Notices of East Fla., by a recent traveller, p. 79. For 
the extent and meaning of this singular superstition, see 
Schoolcraft, Oneota, pp. 331, 456; Algic Researches, Vol. I., 
p. 149, note; Hist, of the Indian Tribes, Vol. III., p. 66; 
Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, Vol. II., p. 271 ; Bradford, 
American Antiquities, p. 415; Mackay, Progress of the In- 
tellect, Vol. I., p. 146, and note is. 

^ Narrative of Oceola Nikkanoche, p. 77. 

3 C. Swan in Schoolcraft's His. Ind. Tribes, Vol. V., p. 2C0. 



148 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

studied as we have quite a number of vocabularies 
preserved by different writers. 

Ever since the first settlement of these Indians in 
Florida they have been engaged in a strife with the 
whites/ sometimes desultory and partial, but usually 
bitter, general, and barbarous beyond precedent in the 
bloody annals of border warfare. In the unanimous 
judgment of unprejudiced writers, the whites have 
ever been in the wrong, have ever enraged the Indians 
by wanton and unprovoked outrages, but they have 
likewise ever been the superior und victorious party. 
The particulars of these contests have formed the 
subjects of separate histories by able writers, and con- 
sequently do not form a part of the present work. 

Without attempting a more minute specification, it 
will be sufficient to point out the swift and steady 
decrease of this and associated tribes by a tabular ar- 
rangement of such censual statistics as appear most 
worthy of trust. 

1 By the -whites I refer to the descendants of the English of 
the northern states. While under the Spanish government, 
up to the first Seminole war, their nation was said to be " nu- 
merous, proud and wealthy." (Vignoles, Obs. on the Flori- 
das, App., p. 215.) This was owing to the Spanish laws which 
gave them equal privileges with white and free colored per- 
sons, and drew the important distinction that they could hold 
land individually, but not nationally. How different these 
beneficent regulations from the decree of the Florida Legisla- 
ture in 1827, that any male Indian found out of the reserva- 
tion " shall receive not exceeding thirty-nine stripes on his 
bare back, and his gun be taken away from him." (Laws 
relating to Inds. and Ind. Affairs, p. 247, Washington, 1832,) 
and similar enactments. 



LATER TRIBES. 149 



Censual Statistics of the Lower Cheeks and 
Seminoles. 



Date. 


Number. Authority. 


Remarks. 


1716 


1000 


Robertsi 


L. Creek war. on Flint river. 


1734 


1350 


Anon. 2 


Lower Creek warriors. 


1740 


1000 


Anon.^ 


<< (( (( 


1774 


2000 


Wm. Bartram* 


Lower Creeks. i 


1776 


3500 


Romans^ 


Gun-men of U. and L. Creeks. 


1820 


1200 


Morse^ 


«* Pure blooded Seminoles." 


1821 


5000 


J. H. Bell7 


All tribes in the State. 


1822 


3891 


Gad Humphreys^ 


Semi'noles E. of Apalacbicola 


1823 


4883 


Pub. Docs.9 


All tribes in the State. 


1836 


1660 


Spragueio 


Serviceable warriors. 


1843 


42 


Sprague'i 


Pure Seminole warriors. 


1846 


70 


Sprague^* 


(( (( (< 


1850 


70 


Sprague^3 


<( <( (( 


1856 


150 


Pub. papers 


Mixed warriors. 


1858 


30 


Pub. papers 


<< << 



Probably within the prtsent year (1859) the last of 
this nation, the onl}' free representatives of those many 
tribes east of the Mississippi that two centuries since 
held undisturbed sway, will bid an eternal farewell to 
their ancient abodes, and leave thera to the quiet pos- 
session of that race that seems destined to supplant 
them. 

1 Roberts, First Disc, of Fla , p. 90. 

2 Collections of Georgia Hist. Soc. Vol. IL, p. 318. 

3 Ibid., p. 73. 

* Travels, p. 211. 

5 Nat. History, p. 91. 

" Report on Indian Affairs, p. 33. 

1 Colien, Notices of Florida, p. 48. 

8 Sprague, Hist, of tbe Fla. War, p. 19. 

8 American State Papers, Vol, VI., p. 439. 
'0 Hist, of the Fla. War, p. 97. 
I'Ibid., p. 409. 
iMbid., p. 512. 
"3 Ibid. 

13* 



150 FLOEIDIAN PENINSULA. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE SPANISH MISSIONS. 

Early Attempts. — Efforts of Aviles. — Later Missions. — Ex- 
tent during the most flourishing period. — Decay. 

It was ever the characteristic of the Spanish con- 
queror that first in his thoughts and aims was the 
extension of the religion in which he was born and 
bred. The complete history of the Romish Church in 
America would embrace the whole conquest and settle- 
ment of those portions held originally by France and 
Spain. The earliest and most energetic explorers of 
the New and much of the Old World have been the 
pious priests and lay brethren of this religion. While 
others sought gold they labored for souls, and in all 
the perils and sufferings of long journeys and tedious 
voyages cheerfully bore a part, well rewarded by one 
convert or a single baptism. With the same zeal that 
distinguished them everywhere else did they labor in 
the unfruitful vineyard of Florida, and as the story of 
their endeavors is inseparably bound up with the con- 
dition of the natives and progress of the Spanish 
arms, it is with peculiar fitness that the noble toils of 
these self-denying men become the theme of our in- 
vestigation. 

The earliest explorers, De Leon, Narvaez, and Be 
Soto, took pains to have with them devout priests as 
well as bold lancers, and remembered, which cannot be 
said of all their cotemporaries, that though the natives 



THE SPANISH MISSIONS. 151 

might possess gold, they were not devoid of souls. 
The latter included in his complement no less than 
twelve priests, eight lay brethren, and four clergymen 
of inferior rank ; hut their endeavors seem to have 
achieved only a very paltry and transient success. 

The first wholly missionary voyage to the coast of 
Florida, and indeed to any part of America north of 
Mexico, was undertaken by Luis Cancel de Balbastro, 
a Dominican friar, who in 1547 petitioned Charles I. 
of Spain to fit out an armament for converting the 
heathen of that country. A gracious ear was lent to 
his proposal, and two years afterwards, in the spring 
of 1549, a vessel set sail from the port of Vera Cruz 
in Mexico, commanded by the skillful pilot Juan de 
Arana, and bearing to their pious duty Luis Cancel 
with three other equally zealous brethren, Juan Gar- 
cia, Diego de Tolosa, and Gregcrio Beteta. Their story 
is brief and sad. Going by way of Havana they first 
struck the western coast of the peninsula about 28° 
north latitude the day after Ascension day. After two 
months wasted in fruitless efforts to conciliate the 
natives in various parts, when all but Beteta had fallen 
martyrs to their devotion to the cause of Christianity, 
the vessel put back from her bootless voyage, and 
returned to Vera Cruz.* 

Some years afterwards (1559), when Don Tristan de 
Luna y Arellano founded the colony of Santa Maria 

1 Relation de la Floricle apportde par Fr^re Gregorio de 
Beteta, in Ternaux's Rccueil. They did not touch the coast 
beyond the Bay of Apalache nor much south of Tampa Bay. 
Both Barcia (En. Cron. Ano 1549) and Herrera (Dec. VIIL, 
Lib. v., cap. XIV., XV.) say they entered the latter, but this 
cannot be, as the supposed description is entirely inapplicable. 
For other particulars see Eden's translation of Peter Martyr, 
(fol. 319, Londini, 1555.) 



152 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

de Felipina near where Pensacola was subsequently 
built, be was accompanied by a provincial bishop and 
a considerable corps of priests, but as his attempt was 
unsuccessful and his colony soon disbanded, they could 
have made no impression on the natives.^ 

It was not till the establishment of a permanent 
garrison at St. Augustine by the Adelantado Pedro 
Menendez de Aviles, that the Catholic religion took 
firm root in Floridian soil. In the terms of his out- 
fit is enumerated the enrollment of four Jesuit priests 
and twelve lay brethren. Everywhere he displayed 
the utmost energy in the cause of religion ; wherever 
he placed a garrison, there was also a spiritual father 
stationed. In 1567 he sent the two learned and zeal- 
ous missionaries Rogel and Villareal to the Caloosas, 
among whom a settlement had already been formed 
under Francesgo de Reinoso. At their suggestion a 
seminary for the more complete instruction of youthful 
converts was established at Havana, to which among 
others the son of the head chief was sent, with what 
success we have previously seen. 

The followiog year ten other missionaries arrived, 
one of whom, Jean Babtista Segura, had been ap- 
pointed Vice Provincial. The majority of these worked 
with small profit in the southern provinces, but Padre 
Antonio Sedeno settled in the island of Guale,^ and is 
to be remembered as the first who drew up a grammar 
and catechism of any aboriginal tongue north of 

1 The authority for this, as well as most of the facts in this 
chapter where other references are not given, is Barcia's £n- 
savo Cronologico. 

* Sometimes called Santa Maria or St. Marys; now Amelia 
Island, so named, from the beauty of its shores, by Gov. Ogle- 
thorpe in 1736. (Francis Moore, Voynge to Georgia, iu 
Ga. Hist. Soc.'s Colls. Vol. I., p. 12i ) 



/ / THE SPANISH MISSIONS. 153 

Mexico; but he reaped a sparse harvest from his toil; 
for though jBve others labored with him, we hear of 
only seven conversions, and four of these infants in arti- 
culo mortis. Yet it is also stated that as early as 1566 
the Adelantado himself had brought about the conver- 
sion of these Indians en masse. A drought of eight 
months had reduced them to the verge of starvation. 
By his advice a large cross was erected and public 
prayer held. A tremendous storm shortly set in, 
proving abundantly to the savages the truth of his 
teachings. But they seem to have turned afresh to 
their wallowing in the mire. 

In 1569, the Padre Rogel gave up in despair the 
still more intractable Caloosas ; and among the more 
cultivated nations surrounding San Felipe, north of 
the Savannah river, sought a happier field for his 
efi"orts. In six months he had learned the language 
and at first flattered himself much on their aptness for 
religious instruction. But in the fall, when the acorns 
ripened, all his converts hastened to decamp, leaving 
the good father alone in his church. And though he 
followed them untiringly into woods and swamps, yet 
'< with incredible wickedness they would learn nothing, 
nor listen to his exhortations, but rather ridiculed them, 
jeopardizing daily more and more their salvation." 
With infinite pains he collected some few into a vil- 
lage, gave them many gifts, and furnished them food 
and mattocks ; but again • they most ungratefully de- 
serted him ^'with no other motive than their natural 
laziness and fickleness.''^ Finding his best efi"orts 
thrown away on such stiff-necked heathen, with a 
heavy heart he tore down his house and church, and, 
shaking the dust off his feet, quitted the country 
entirely. 



154 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

At this period the Spanish settlements consisted of 
three colonies : St. Augustine, originally built south of 
where it now stands on St. Nicholas creek, and changed 
in 1566, San Malteo at the mouth of the river of the 
same name, now the St. Johns, ^ and fifty leagues north 
of this San Felipe in the province of Orista or Santa 
Helena, now South Carolina. In addition to these 
there were five block-houses, (casas fuertes), two, To- 
cobaga and Carlos, on the western coast, one at its 
southern extremity, Tegesta, one in the province of 
Aisor Santa Lucea, and a fifth, which Juan Pardohad 
founded one hundred and fifty leagues inland at the 
foot of certain lofty mountains, where a cacique Coava 
ruled the large province Axacan.^ There seem also 
to have been several minor settlements on the St. 
Johns. 

Such was the flourishing condition of the country 
when that '' terrible heretic and runaway galley slave," 
as the Spanish chronicler calls him, Dominique de 
Gourgues of Mont Marsain, aided by Pierre le Breu, 
who had escaped the massacre of the French in 1565, 
and the potent chief Soturiba, demolished the most 
important posts (1567). Writers have over-rated the 
injury this foray did the colony. In reality it served 
but to stimulate the indomitable energy of Aviles. 
Though he himself was at the court of Spain and 
obliged to remain there, with the greatest promptness 
he dispatched Estevan de las Alas with two hundred 

^ I Called by the natives Ylacco or Walaka, the river of many 
lakes ; by the French Riviere Mai, as Ribaut entered it on the 
first of that month ; by the Spaniards Rio Matheo, Rio Pico- 
lato, on some charts by mistake Rio San Augustin, Rio Ma- 
tanca and Rio Caouita, and not till much later Rio San Juan, 
which the English changed to St. Johns, and St. Whan. 
2 Barcia, p. 123, and cf., p. 128. 



THE SPANISH MISSIONS. 155 

aod seventy-three men, who rebuilt and equipped San 
Matheo, and with one hundred and fifty of his force 
quartered himself in San Felipe. 

With him had gone out quite a number of priests. 
The majority of these set out for the province of Axaean, 
under the guidance of the brother of its chief, who had 
been taken by Aviles to Spain, and there baptized, 
in honor of the viceroy of New Spain, Don Luis de 
Velasco. His conversion, however, was only simula- 
tion, as no sooner did he see the company entirely 
remote from assistance, than, with the aid of some 
other natives, he butchered them all, except one boy, 
who escaped and returned to San Felipe. Three years 
after (1569), the Adelantado made an attempt to re- 
venge this murder, but the perpetrators escaped him. 

Notwithstanding these drawbacks, at the time of the 
death of Aviles, a firm and extensive foundation had 
been laid for the Christian religion, though it was by 
no means professed, as has been asserted, " by all the 
tribes from Santa Helena, on the north, to Boca Rat- 
tones, on the south, and from the Atlantic to the Gulf 
of Mexico."^ 

After his death, under the rule of his nephew, Pedro 
Menendez Marquez, a bold soldier but a poor politician, 
the colony seems to have dwindled to a very insignifi- 
cant point. Spanish historians speak vaguely of many 
nations reduced by him, but such accounts cannot be 
trusted. At the time of the destruction of St. Augus- 
tine by Drake, in 1586, this town was built of wood, 
and garrisoned by one hundred and fifty men. a And 

1 Williams, Florida, p. 175. 

2 Though Drake left nothing but the fort, and the dwell- 
ings were a second time destroyed by Col. Palmer, in 1727, 
yet Stoddard. (Sketches of Louisiana, p. 120) says houses 
were standing in his time bearing the date 1571 ! 



156 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

if we may believe the assertions of the prisoners he 
brought to England, the whole number of souls, both 
at this place and at Santa Helena, did not exceed two 
hundred.* Only six priests were in the colony ; and as 
to-the disposition of the Indians, it was so hostile and 
dangerous, that for some time subsequent the soldiers 
dared never leave the fort, even to hunt or fish. a Yet 
it was just about this time (1584), that Williams,^ on 
the authority of his ancient manuscript, states that 
"the Spanish authorities were acknowledged as far 
west as the river Mississippi (Empalazada), and north 
one hundred and forty leagues to the mountains of 
Georgia !" 

As early as 1566, fourteen women had been intro- 
duced by Sancho de Arminiega ; but we read of no 
increase, and it is probable that for a long series of 
years the colony was mainly supported by fresh 
arrivals. 

It was not till 1592, when, in pursuance of an ordi- 
nance of the Council of the Indies, twelve Franciscans 
were deputed to the territory, that the missions took a 
new start. They were immediately forwarded to various 
quarters of the province, and for a while seem to have 
been quite successful in their labors. It is said that in 
1594 there were ''no less than twenty mission houses." 
One of these priests, Pedro de Corpa, superior of the 
mission of Tolemato (Tolemaro) near the mouth of the 
St. Marys river, by his unsparing and harsh rebukes, 
excited the anger of the natives to such a degree that, 

1 Hackluyt, Vol. III., p. 432. Pedro Morales adds, *' The 
greatest number of Spanyards that have beeae in Florida 
these sixe yeeres, was 300." 

2 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, Lib. XIX. , cap. XX., 
p. 350. 

3 Nat. and Civ. Hist, of Fla., p. 175. 



THE SPANISH MISSIONS. 157 

headed by the chief of Guale, they rose en masse, and 
murdered him at the foot of the altar. Nor did this 
glut their vengeance. Bearing his dissevered head 
upon a pole as a trophy and a standard, they crossed 
to the neighboring island of Guale, and there laid 
waste the missions Topiqui, Asao, Ospo, and Assopo. 
The governor of St. Augustine lost no time in has- 
tening to the aid of the sufferers; and, though the 
perpetrators of the deeds could nowhere be found, by 
the destruction of their store-houses and grain fields, 
succeeded by a long drought, ^^ which God visited upon 
them for their barbarity," such a dreadful famine 
fell upon them that their tribe was nearly annihilated 
(1600). 

In 1602, Juan Altimirano, bishop of Cuba, vi'sited 
this portion of his diocess, and was much disheartened 
by the hopeless barbarity of the natives. So much so, 
indeed, that years afterwards, when holding discussion 
with the bishop of Guatemala concerning the query, 
" Is God known by the light of Nature ?" and the 
latter pressing him cogently with Cicero, he retorted, 
<< Ah, but Cicero had not visited Florida, or he would 
never have spoken thus.'' 

This discouraging anecdote to (he contrary, the very 
next year, in the general assembly that met at Toledo. 
Florida, in conjunction with Havana and Bahama, was 
constituted a Custodia of eleven convents, and in 1612, 
they were elevated into an independent Provincia, under 
the name of Santa Helena, with the head convent at 
Havana, and Juan Capillas appointed first Provincial 
Bishop.i An addition of thirty-two Franciscans, partly 
under Geronimo de Ore in 1612, and partly sent out 

^ Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, Lib. XIX., cap. XX., 
p. 350; Barcia, Anos 1603 and 1612. 

u 



158 FLOKIDIAN PENINSULA. 

by Philip III., the year after, sped the work of con- 
version, and for a long time subsequent, we find vague 
mention of nations baptized and churches erected. 

About the middle of the century, (1649,) the priests 
had increased to fifty, and the episcopal revenue 
amounted to four hundred dollars. At this time 
St. Augustine numbered ^'more than three hundred 
inhabitants.'" So great had been the success of the 
spiritual fathers, that in 1655, Diego de Rebolledo, 
then Governor and Captain-General, petitioned the king 
to erect the colony into a bishopric; a request which, 
though favorably viewed, was lost through delay and 
procrastination. Similar attempts, which were simi- 
larly frustrated, were made by hissuccessors Juan Mar- 
quez in 1682, and Juan Ferro in 1689. 

Notwithstanding these indications of a lively energy, 
a very difi"erent story is told by the traveller of Car- 
thagena, Francois Coreal, who visited the peninsula in 
1669. He mentions no settlements but San xiugus- 
tine and San Matheo, — indeed, expressly states that 
there were none,^ — and even these were in a sorry 
plight enough, (assez degarnies.) Either he must have 
been misinformed, or the work of conversion proceeded 
with great and sudden rapidity after his visit, as less 
than twenty years afterwards, (1687,) when by the 
attempts of Juan Marquez to remove the natives to the 
West India Islands, many forsook their homes for 
distant regions, they left a number of missions de- 
serted, as San Felipe, San Simon, Sapola, Obaldiqui, 
and others. This marked increase was largely owing 
to a subsidy of twenty-four Franciscans under Alonzo 

1 L'interieur, non plus que les parties de I'ouest et du 
Nord n'est pas en notre pouvoir. Voiages aux Indes Occi- 
dentales, T. I., p. 27. 



THE SPANISH MISSIONS. 159 

de Moral in 1676, and the energetic action of the 
Bishop of Cuba, who spared no pains to facilitate the 
advent of missionaries to all parts. ^ 

In pursuance of the advice of Pablo de Hita, Go- 
vernor-General, attempts were renewed in 1679 to 
convert the nations of the southern extremity of the 
peninsula, and in 1698, there were fourteen Fran- 
ciscans employed among them. These Indians are 
described as "idolaters and given to all abominable 
vices,'' and not a few of the missionaries suffered mar- 
tyrdom in their efforts to reclaim them.^ 

Towards the close of the century, (1696,) the con- 
dition of St. Augustine is described by Jonathan 
Dickinson^ as follows : — " It is about three-quarters 
of a mile in length, not regularly built, the houses 
not very thick, they having large orchards, in which 
are plenty of oranges^ lemmons, pome-citrons, lymes, 
figgs, and peaches: the houses, most of them, are old 
buildings, and not half of them inhabited. The number 
of men that belong to government being about three 
hundred, and many of them are kept as sentinalls at 
their lookouts. At the north end of the town stands a 
large fortification, being a quadrangel with bastions. 
Each bastion will contain thirteen guns, but there is 
not passing two-thirds of fifty-two mounted. . . . 
The wall of the fortification is about thirty foot high, 

built of sandstone sawed [coquina rock] 

The fort is moated round." 

The colony of Pensacola or Santa Maria de Galve, 

1 He published two Cedulas Reales for this purpose, bearing 
the dates Oct. 20, 1680, and Sept. 30, 1G87. 

2 Barcia, p. 317 ; Careri, Voyage round the World, in 
Churchill's Coll., Vol. IV., p. 537. 

• God's Protecting Providence, pp. 77-8. 



160 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

founded by Andres de Pes in 1693, gradually increasing 
in importance and maintaining an overland connection 
with St. Augustine, naturally gave rise to intermediate 
settlements, for which the fertile, wide-spread savannas 
of Alachua, the rich hammocks along the Suwannee, 
and the productive limestone soil of Middle Florida 
offered unrivalled advantages. 

The tractable Apalaches and their neighbors received 
the missionaries with much favor, and it is said that 
almost all the former were converted ;i a statement 
which we must confine, however, to that small portion 
of the confederated tribes included under this title, 
that lived in Middle Florida. When Colonel Moore 
invaded their country in 1703-4, he found them living 
in villages, each having its parish church, subsisting 
principally by agriculture, and protected by a garrison 
of Spanish soldiers.^ The open well-cleared character 
of their country, and the marks of their civilized con- 
dition were long recalled in tradition by the later 
Indians.^ So strong a hold did Catholicism take upon 
them that more than a century subsequent, when the 
nation was reduced to an insignificant family on the 
Bayou Rapide, they still retained its forms, corrupted 
by admixture with their ancient heliolatry.* 

On the Atlantic coast, there were besides St. Augus- 
tine the towns of San Matheo, Santa Cruce, San Juan, 

' Maintenant ils sont presquetouts Cliretiens. Louys Mo- 
rery, Le Grand Dictionnaire Historique, ou le Melange Cu- 
rieux, Vol. I., Art. Apalaches. (Amsterdam and La Haye, 
1702.) 

2 See the Report on Oglethorpe's Expedition, and Col. 
Moore's Letter to the Governor, in Carroll's Hist. Colls, of 
S. C, Vol. IL 

3 Williams, View of W. Fla., p. 107. 

4 Alcedo, Diet, of America, Vol. L, p. 81. 



THE SPANISH MISSIONS. 161 

Santa Maria, and others. The Indians of these mis- 
sions Dickinson^ describes as scrupulous in their 
observance of the Catholic rites, industrious and pros- 
perous in their worldly relations, " having plenty of 
hogs and fowls, and large crops of corn;'' and each 
hamlet presided over by " Fryars," who gave regular 
instruction to the native children in school-houses 
built for the purpose. All these were north of St. 
Augustine; to the south the savages were more per- 
verse, and in spite of the earnest labors of many pious 
priests, some of whom fell martyrs to their zeal, they 
clung tenaciously to heathendom. 

Nothing definite is known regarding the settlements 
on and near the Gulf, but in all probability they were 
more extensive than those on the eastern shore, peo- 
pling the coast and inland plains with a race of 
civilized and Christian Indians. Cotemporary geogra- 
phers speak of "the towns of Achalaquc, Ossachile, 
Hirritiqua, Coluna, and some others of less note,''^ as 
founded and governed by Spaniards, while numerous 
churches and villages are designated on ancient charts, 
with whose size and history we are totally unacquainted. 
Many of these doubtless refer to native hamlets, while 
the Spanish names affixed to others point to settle- 
ments made by that nation. How much the Church 
of Rome had at heart the extension and well-being of 
this portion of her domain, may be judged from the 
fact that she herself bore half the expense of the mili- 
tary kept in the province for its protection. ^ 

Such was the condition of the Spanish missions of 

1 God's Protecting Providence, pp. 68-9. 
* Herman Moll, Thesaurus Geographus, Pt. II., p. 211, 
4th ed. London, 1722. 

' Dickinson, God's Protecting Prov., p. 03. 
14* 



162 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

Florida at tlieir most flourishing period. Shortly after 
the commencement of the eighteenth century, foes 
from the north destroyed and drove out the colonists, 
demolishing in a few years all that the life, and the 
blood, and the toil of so many martyrs during two cen- 
turies had availed to construct. About the middle of 
the century we have a tolerably accurate knowledge of 
the country through English writers; and then so few 
and insignificant were the Spanish settlements, that 
only one occurred between St. Marks and St. Augus- 
tine, while, besides the latter, the only post on the 
Atlantic coast was a wretched " hut'' on the south bank 
of the St. Johns at its mouth. ^ 

Undoubtedly it is to the close of the seventeenth 
century therefore that we must refer those vestiges of 
an extensive and early inhabitation that occasionally 
meet our notice in various parts. Sometimes in the 
depth of forests of apparently primeval growth the 
traveller has been astonished to find rusting church 
bells, half buried brass cannon, mouldering walls, and 
the decaying ruins of once stately edifices. Especially 
numerous are these in middle Florida, along the old 
Spanish highway from St. Augustine to Pensacola, on 
the banks of the St. Johns, and on Amelia island. 
The Indians informed the younger Bartram^ that near 
the Suwannee, a few miles above Manatee Spring, the 
Spaniards formerly had " a rich, well cultivated, and 
populous settlement, and a strong fortified post, as they 
likewise had at the savanna and field of Capola,'' east 
of the Suwannee, between it and the Alachua plains ; 
but that these were far inferior to those on the Apala- 

' Roberts, Hist, of Fla., p. 15, and Francis Moore's Voyage 
to Georgia. 

2 Travels, p. 233. 



THE SPANISH MISSIONS. 163 

cliian Old Fields " where yet remain vast works and 
buildings, fortifications, temples, kc." The elder Bar- 
tram* speaks of similar remarkable antiquities on the 
St. Johns, Bernard Romans^ in various parts of the 
interior, Williams, ^ Brackenridge,'* and others^ in mid- 
dle Florida, and I may add the numerous Spanish Old 
Fields which I observed throughout the peninsula, the 
extensive coquina quarries on Anastasia (St. Estaca, 
Fish's) Island, and the deserted plantations on Mus- 
quito and Indian river Lagoons, as unequivocal proofs 
of a much denser population than is usually supposed 
to have existed in those regions. 

The easy conquest these settlements offered to the 
English and the rapidity with which they melted away 
were partly owing to the insufficient force kept for 
their protection. Colonel Daniels, who led the land 
force of Governor Moore's army in 1702, and took 
possession of St. Augustine, apparently met with no 
noticeable opposition on his march ; while we have it 
on official authority that the year after there were only 
three hundred and fifty-three soldiers in the whole 
province of whom forty-five were in Apalache, seven 
in Timuqua, nineteen in Guale, and the rest in St. 
Augustine. 

The incursion of the English in 1702-1706, and of 
the Creeks (Alibamons) in 1705, were very destructive 

1 Travels in E. Fla., p. 32, Darlington, Mems. of Bartram 
and Marshall, p, 284. 

2 Nat. Hist. E. and W. Fla , pp. 277-8. 

» Nat. and Civil Hist. Fla. Preface and p. 175. 

* See his letter on the Antiquities of the State in Williams' 
View of W. Fla., pp. 105-110. 

6 The AVar in Fla., by a late Staff Officer, p. 5; see also, 
the account of Black Hoof in Morse's Rep. on Ind. Affairs, 
App. p. 98, and cf Archicol. Am., Vol. I. p. 273. 



164 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

to the monastic establishments of the north, and 
though Juan de Ayala, minister of the interior, de- 
voted himself earnestly to restoring them, his labor 
was destined to yield small profit. The destruction of 
Pensacola by Bienville in 1719, the ravages of Colonel 
Palmer eight years later, the second demolition of the 
settlements in Apalache, between Tallahassie and St. 
Marks, by a marauding party of English and Indians 
in 1736, the inroad of Governor Oglethorpe four years 
subsequent, and another incursion of the English in 
1745 — these following in quick succession, it may be 
readily conceived rendered of no avail the efforts of 
the Franciscans to re-establish their missions on Flori- 
dian soil. 

Previous to the cession to England the settlements 
had become reduced to St. Josephs, Pensacola, and St. 
Marks on the Gulf, Picolati on the St. Johns, and 
St. Augustine on the Atlantic. When the English 
took possession, the latter town numbered nine hun- 
dred houses and five thousand seven hundred inhabi- 
tants including a garrison of two thousand five hun- 
dred men.^ There was a well-built church here as 
also at Pensacola, while at St. Marks there were two 
convents, one of Jesuits the other of Franciscans.'' At 
this time but very few of the Indians, who are de- 
scribed as " bigotted idolaters worshipping the sun 
and moon," and <' noted for a bold, subtile, and deceit- 
ful people,"^ seem to have been in the fold of the 
Catholic (Jhurch. 

Harassed and worn out as the colony was by long 
wars, and apparently soon to die a natural death, it is 

1 Dr. Stork, Des. of E. Fla., p. 8. 
^ Capt. Robinson, in Roberts, p. 97. 
' Roberts, Hist, of Fla , p. 5. 



THE SPANISH MISSIONS. 165 

not a matter of wonder that in the tripartite Definitive 
Treaty of Peace signed at A^ersailles, February 10th, 
1763, Spain was glad to relinquish her right to its 
soil in consideration of the far superior island of Cuba.^ 
Though it was stipulated that all who desired to remain 
should enjoy their property-rights, and religion, very 
few availed themselves of the privilege, little loth to 
forsake a country that had been one continued scene 
of war and tumult for more than half a century. 

With this closes the history of the conversion of 
the Indians as during the English regime they were 
lost sight of in other issues, and when the Spanish re- 
turned to power such a scene of unquiet turmoil and 
ceaseless wrangling awaited them as effectually to 
divert their attention from the moral condition of the 
aboriginal tribes. 

1 Parliamentary History, Vol. XV., Col. 1301, Art. XX. 



166 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

CHAPTER VI. 

ANTIQUITIES. 
Mounds. — Roads. — Shell Heaps. — Old Fields. 

The descriptions left by the elder and younger Bar- 
tram of the magnitude and character of the Floridian 
antiquities, had impressed me with a high opinion 
of their perfection, and induced large expectations of 
the light they might throw on the civilization of the 
aborigines of the peninsula; but a personal examina- 
tion has convinced me that they differ little from those 
common in other parts of our country, and are capable 
of a similar explanation. Chief among them are the 
mounds. These are not infrequent upon the rich 
lowlands that border the rivers and lakes; and so 
invariably did their builders choose this position, that 
during the long journeys I made in the prairies and flat 
pine woods east of the St. Johns as well as over the 
rolling and fertile country between this river and the 
Gulf, as far south as Manatee, I never saw one other- 
wise located. An enumeration and description of some 
of the most noteworthy will suffice to indicate their 
character and origin. 

On Amelia island, some half a mile east of Fernan- 
dina new town, there is an open field, containing some 
thirty acres, in shape an isosceles triangle, clothed 
with long grass and briary vines, bounded on all sides 
by dense thickets of myrtle, live-oak, palmetto, yellow 
pine and cedar. About midway of the base of this 



ANTIQUITIES. 167 

triangle, stands a mound thrown up on the extremity 
of a natural ridge, which causes its height to vary from 
twenty to five-and-thirty feet on the diflFerent sides. It 
is composed of the common surface sand, obtained from 
the east side, close to the base, where an excavation is 
visible. A few live-oaks and pines grow upon it, the 
largest of which, at the time of my visit (1856), meas- 
ured seventeen inches in diameter. There is a fine 
view from the summit, embracing on the west the vast 
marshes between Amelia island and the mainland, with 
a part of St. Mary's sound, across which, northward, 
lie the woody shores of Cumberland island, projected 
in dark relief against the glittering surf of the Atlantic, 
which stretches away in a brilliant white line to the 
north-east, loosing itself in the broad expanse of ocean 
that bounds the eastern horizon. Hence, one of its 
uses was, doubtless, as a look-out or watch-tower; but 
from excavations, made by myself and others, it proved, 
like every similar mound I examined, or heard of as 
examined, in Florida, to be, in construction, a vast 
tomb. Human bones, stone axes, darts, and household 
/ utensils, were disinterred in abundance. Quantities of 
rudely marked fragments of pottery, and broken oys- 1 
ter, clam, and conch shells, were strewed over the field. 
I was informed of a second mound, smaller in size, 
somewhat south of Fernandina light-house ; but owing 
to the brevity of my stay, and the incredible swarms 
of musquitoes that at that season infested the woods, I 
did not visit it. I could learn nothing of the two 
la^ge tumuli on this island, known as the ^' Ogeechee 
Mounts,'' mentioned by the younger Bartram.^ 

On Fleming's Island, at the mouth of Black Creek, 

1 Travels, p. 65. 



168 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

identified by Sparks with the "extremely beautiful, 
fertile, and thickly inhabited" Edelano of the French 
colonists, and on Murphy's Island, eight miles above 
Pilatka, are found mounds of moderate size, and va- 
rious other vestiges of their ancient owners. But far 
more remarkable than these are the large constructions 
on the shores and islands at the southern extremity of 
Lake George, first visited and described as follows, by 
John Bartram,* in 1766 : " About noon we landed at 
Mount Royal, and went to see an Indian tumulus, 
which was about one hundred yards in diameter, nearly 
round, and twenty foot high. Found some bones scat- 
tered on it. It must be very ancient, as live-oak are 
growing upon it three foot in diameter; directly south 
from the tumulus is an avenue, all the surface of 
which has been taken ofi" and thrown on one side, 
which makes a bank of about a rood wide and a foot 
high, more or less, as the unevenness of the ground 
required, for the avenue is as level as a floor from bank 
to bank, and continues so for three quarters of a mile, 
to a pond of water about one hundred yards wide and 
one hundred and fifty long, north and south, — seemed to 
be an oblong square, and its banks four foot perpen- 
dicular, gradually sloping every way to the water, the 
depth of which we do not say, but do not imagine it 
deep, as the grass grows all over it ; by its regularity 
it seems to be artificial; if so, perhaps the sand was 
carried from thence to raise the tumulus." 

A description of this mound is also given by Wm. 
Bartram, who visited it both with his father, and fif- 
teen years later.^ In summing up the antiquities, he 
saw in Florida, this author says,"* "from the river 

1 Jour, of Travels in E. Fla., p. 25. 

2 Travels, p. 99. » Ibid., p. 521. 



ANTIQUITIES. 169 

St. Juans southerly to the point of the peninsula of 
Florida are to be seen high pyramidal mounts with 
spacious and extensive avenues leading from them out 
of the town to an artificial lake or pond of water. The 
great mounts, highways, and artificial lakes up St. 
Juans on the east shore, just at the entrance of the 
great Lake George; one on the opposite shore, on the 
bank of the Little lake, another on Dunn's island, a 
little below Charlotteville, and one on the large beau- 
tiful island just without the Capes of Lake George, in 
sight of Mount Royal, and a spacious one on the West 
banks of Musquitoe river near New Smyrna, are the 
most remarkable of this sort that occurred to me.'' 

The artificial lakes in this account are the excava- 
tions made in obtaining material, since filled with 
water. The highways, which, in another passage, the 
above quoted writer describes as <' about fifty yards 
wide, sunk a little below the common level, and the 
earth thrown up on each side, making a bank of about 
two feet high,"^ seem, from both French and Spanish 
accounts to have been not unusual among the natives. 
Laudonniere mentions one of great beauty that extended 
from the village of Edelano to the river some three 
hundred paces in length,^ and another still more con- 
siderable at the head quarters of the powerful chief 
Utina,3 which must have been very near if not identi- 
cal with that at Mount Royal. La Vega, in his 

J Travels, p. 99. 

2 Au sorty du village d' Edelano, pour venir au port de la 
riviere il faut passer par une allee, longue environ de trois cens 
pas et large de quinze, aux deux costez de laquelle sont 
plantez de grands arbres, &c. Hist. Notable, p. 188. 

3 II y a au sortir du village une grande allee de trois a 
quatre cens pas, laquelle et recouverte de grands arbres des 
deux costez. Hist. Not., pp. 164-5. 

15 



170 FLOEIDIAN PENINSULA. 

remarkable chapter on the construction of the native 
villages/ speaks of such broad passages leading from 
the public square at the base to the house of the chief 
on the summit of the mound that the natives were ac- 
customed to throw up for its site. What we are to 
understand by the royal highways, Caminos ReaJeSj 
near Tampa Bay, that lead from one town to another, 
(que van de un Pueblo al otro,)^ an expression that 
would not be applicable to mere trails, is not very 
evident. 

Six miles by water above Lake Monroe, near the 
shore of a small lagoon on the left bank of the river, 
stands an oval mound of surface soil filled with human 
bones of so great an age, and so entirely decomposed, 
that the instrument with which I was digging passed 
through them with as much ease as through the cir- 
cumjacent earth. Yet, among these ancient skeletons, 
I discovered numerous small blue and large white glass 
beads, undoubtedly inhumed at the formation of the 
tumulus. The bodies were all of adults and no special 
order in their deposition seemed to have been observed. 
\ Previous to my visit, I was informed that small earthen- 
ware articles had been disinterred, some of which were ) 
simply pyramids of triangular bases, whose use had 
much puzzled the finder. We know that this form, 
sacred in the mythologies of the old world to the wor- 
ship of the productive power, had also a strong religious 
significance among the'Natchez, and many other ab- 
original tribes,^ and probably in connection with the 
burial of the dead, it possessed among the Floridians, 

1 Conq. de la Florida, Lib. IL, P. I , cap. ult. 

2 La Vega, Ibid., Lib. I., cap. V., pp. 30-1. 

3 Lafitau in Bauragarten, Geschicbte von Amerika, B. I., s. 
71 ; Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, Vol. IL, pp. 52, 190. 



ANTIQUITIES. 171 

as it did among the ancients and orientals,^ a symboli- 
cal connection witli the immortality of the soul and the 
life after death. 

In the rich hammock half a mile below Lake Harney 
on the left bank of the St. Johns, is a large oval mound, 
its transverse diameter at base forty yards, and thirty 
feet in height. It is surrounded by a ditch whence 
the soil of which it is constructed was taken. An ex- 
tremely luxuriant vegetation covers the whole hammock 
and the mound itself, though few of the trees indicate 
a great age. On the same side of the river twenty 
miles above the lake, is another similar mound. They 
are abundant on the rich lands of Marion and Alachua 
counties, and in the hammocks of the Suwannee, and 
are found at least as far south as Charlotte's Harbor 
and the Miami river. There is one on the government 
reserve in Tampa, another at the head of Old Tampa 
Bay, and a third on Long Key, Sarasota Bay. A 
portion of the latter has been washed away by the 
waters of the gulf and vast numbers of skeletons ex- 
posed, some of which I was assured by an intelligent 
gentleman of Manatee, who had repeatedly visited the 
spot and examined the remains, were of astonishing 
size and must have belonged to men seven or eight 
feet in height. This statement is not so incredible as 
it may appear at first sight. Various authors report 
instances of equally gigantic stature among the abori- 
gines of our country. The chiefs of the province of 
Cbicora, a portion of what is now South Carolina, 
were famous for their height, which was supposed to 

1 Kniglit, Anc. Art. sect. 162; Mackay, Progress of the 
Intellect, Vol I., p. 198, note 28 ; Montfaucon, Antiquities, 
Vol. II , p. 235; Gorres, Mythengeschichte, B. I., s. 171. 
10 



172 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

prove their royal blood ;i some inhabitants of the pro- 
vince of Amichel on the Gulf of Mexico were not less 
remarkable in this respect;^ and Beverly found among 
certain human bones religiously preserved in a temple 
of the Virginian Indians an os/emoris, measuring two 
feet nine inches in length f while in our own days, 
Schoolcraft saw a humerus at Fort Hill, New York,* 
and Lanman, sundry bones in a cave in Virginia^ that 
must have belonged to men compared to whom ours is 
but a race of dwarfs. 

On the opposite banks of Silver Spring run, respec- 
tively a quarter of a mile and a mile and a half below 
the head, there are two tumuli. Pottery, axes, andi 
arrow-heads abound in the vicinity, and every sign 
goes to show that this remarkable spot was once the 
site of a populous aboriginal settlement. 

What now are the characteristics of this class of 
Floridian mounds ? In summing up the whole avail- 
able knowledge respecting them, we arrive at the 
conclusion that to whatever purpose they may have 
subsequently been applied, they were originally con- 
structed as vast cemeteries. Mount Koyal tumulus 
is but a heap of bones covered with earth, and none 
have as yet been opened but disclosed the same con- 
tents. They are very simple in construction. I saw 



^ Real Cedula que contiene el asiento capitulado con Lucas 
Vasquez de Aillon, in Navarrete Viages, Tom. IIL p. 153 ; 
Basanier, Hist. Notable, p. 29, and comp., p. 78. 

' Real cedula dando facultad a Francisco de Garay para 
poblar la Provincia de Amichel, in Navai^rete, Tom. III., p. 
148. The account says they were " de diez a once palmos 
en alto." 

3 Histoire de la Virginie, Liv. III., p. 259, (Orleans, 1707.) 

* Notes on the Iroquois, p. 482. 

6 Letters from the Allegheny Mountains, Let. XX. p. 1G2. 



ANTIQUITIES. 173 

no well-defineJ terraces, no groups of mounds, none 
with rectangular or octagonal bases, no ditches but 
those made in excavating material, no covered ways, no 
stratification; in short, none of those signs of a com- 
paratively advanced art that distinguish the earthworks 
of Ohio. Their age is not great. Some indeed are 
covered with trees of large size, and in one case the 
annual rings were said to count back to the year 1145,^ 
(a statement, Jiowever, that needs confirmation,) but 
the rapid growth of vegetation in that latitude requires 
but a few years to produce a forest. The plantation 
of Lord Rolles, deserted some fourscore years since, is 
now overgrown with pines a foot in diameter, and I 
have seen old fields still bearing the marks of cultiva- 
tion covered with lofty forests, and a spot of cleared 
land, forsaken for ten years, clothed with a thriving 
growth of palmetto and oak. Moreover, savage and 
civilized, all men agree in leaving nature to adorn the 
resting places of the dead, and hence it is an egre- 
gious error to date the passing away of a nation from 
the oldest tree we find on its graves. Rather, when 
we recollect that from the St. Lawrence to the Pampas, 
many tribes did religious homage to certain trees, and 
when we remember how universal a symbol they are 
of birth and resurrection, should we be surprised were 
they not cultivated and fostered on the sepulchres of 
the departed. 3 

We need no fanciful hypotheses to explain the 
reason and designate the time of these constructions. 
The bare recountal of the burial rites that prevailed 

* Arcboeologia Americana, Vol. I. 

2 On the rule of trees in primitive religions consult Guig- 
niaut, Religions de I'Antiquitc, T. L, pp. 81, 160, note, 3U1, 
4UG. 

L5* 



174 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

araono- the aborl2;ines is all sufficient to solve the rid- 
die of bone-mounds both as they occur in Florida and 
all other States. The great feature of these rites was 
to preserve the bones of the dead, a custom full of 
significance in nature-worship everywhere. For this 
purpose the corpses were either exposed or buried till 
sufficient decomposition had ensued to permit the flesh 
to be easily removed. The bones were then scraped 
clean, and either carried to private dwellings, or 
deposited in public charnel-houses; such were the 
<< Templos que Servian de Enticrros y no de Casas do 
Oracion," seen by De Soto at Tampa Bay,* and the 
"Osarios,'' bone-houses, in Cofachiqui, among the 
Cherokees.2 Finally, at stated periods, they were 
collected from all quarters, deposited in some pre- 
determined spot, and there covered with soil heaped 
into the shape of a cone. Annual additions to the 
same cemetery gave rise to the extraordinary dimen- 
sions that some attained 3 or several interments were 
made near the same spot, and hence the groups often 
seen. 3 

As the Natchez, Taencas, and other southern tribes 
were accustomed to place the council-house and chief's 
dwelling on artificial elevations, both to give them an 
air of superior dignity, to render them easy of defence, 

1 La Vega, Conq. de la Florida, Lib. I., cap. IV., p. 5. 

2 Ibid. Lib. III., cap XIV., p. 129, cap. XV., p. 131, et sq. 
^ For descriptions of this mode of interment, essentially the 

same in most of the tribes from the Mississippi to the St. 
Lawrence, and very widely prevalent in South America, con- 
sult Wm. Bartrara, Travels, p. 516 ; Romans, Nat. Hist. Fla., 
pp. 88-90; Adair, Hist. N. Am. Inds., p 188 ; Lawson, New 
Account of Carolina, p. 182, in Stevens' Collection; Beverly, 
Hist, de la Virginie, pp. 239-02 ; Baumgarten, Ges. von 
Amerika, B. I., s. 470; Golden, Hist, of the Five Nations, p. 
16, and many others. 



ANTIQUITIES. 175 

and in some localities to protect from inundations,^ so 
the natives of Florida, in pursuance of the same cus- 
tom, either erected such tumuli for this purpose, or 
more probably, only took advantage of those burial 
mounds that the vicissitudes of war had thrown in 
their hands, or a long period of time deprived of sacred 
associations. In the town of Ucita, where De Soto 
landed, " The Lordes house stoode neere the shore 
upon a very hie mounte made by hande for strength/'^ 
and La Vega gives in detail their construction. 

While this examination of their sepulchral rites, 
taken in connection with the discovery of glass beads 
in situ, leaves no doubt but that such remains were 
the work of the people who inhabited the peninsula at 
its discovery by Europeans, it is not probable that the 
custom was retained much after this period. The 
Lower Creeks and Seminoles, so far from treating their 
dead thus, took pains to conceal the graves, and never 
erected mounds save in one emergency. This was in 
the event of a victorious battle, when they collected 
the dead into one vast pile, and covered them with 
earth,-'' simply because it was the most convenient way 
to pay those last and mournful duties that humanity 
demands at our hands. 

Another class of burial mounds, tallying very nearly 
with those said by the French to have been raised over 
their dead by the early Indians of the St. Johns, are 
not unusual in the hammocks along this river. They 

• See an instructive notice from Pere le Petit in the Lettres 
Edifiantes et Curieuses, T. IV., pp. 261-2, and the Inca, Lib. 
II., pp. G9-70; Lib. IV., p. 188; Lib. V., pp. 202, 231, &c. 

'^ Port. Gent , in Hackluyt, V., p. 489. 

3 Nar. of Oceola Nikkanoche, pp. 71-2. The author speaks 
of one " that must have covered two acres of ground," but 
this is probably a misapprehension. 



176 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

arc only a few feet in height, resembling in appearance 
the hillocks of humus left by the roots of uprooted 
trees, from which they can be distinguished by their 
general range, (N., S.,) by the hollows on each side 
whence the earth was obtained, and by their construc- 
tion. They are sometimes distinctly stratified, pre- 
senting layers of sand, ashes and charcoal, and clay. 
Bones, arrow-heads, axes, and pottery are found in 
them, but as far as my own observations extended, 
and those of a Norwegian settler bearing the classic 
name of Ivon Ericson, who assured me he had exam- 
ined them frequently on the Upper St. Johns, in no 
case were beads or other articles indicating a fami- 
liarity with European productions discovered. 

The utensils, the implements of war and the chase 
exhumed from the mounds, and found in their vicinity, 
do not differ from those in general use among the In- 
dians of all parts at their first discovery,* and go to 
corroborate the opinion that all these earthworks — and 
I am inclined to assert the same of the whole of those 
in the other Atlantic States, and the majority in the 
Mississippi valley — were the production, not of some 
mythical tribe of high civilization in remote antiquity, 
but of the identical nations found by the whites re- 
siding in these regions. 

An equally interesting and more generally dis- 
tributed class of antiquities are the beds and heaps of 

1 I am aware that Mr. Schoolcraft places the pottery of 
Florida intermediate between the coarse work of the northern 
hunter tribes, and the almost artistic manufactures of Yuca- 
tan and Mexico, (see an article on the Antiquities of Florida, 
in the Hist, of the Ind. Tribes, Vol. III. ;) but the numerous 
specimens obtained in various parts of the peninsula that I 
had opportunities to examine, never seemed to indicate a 
civilization so advanced. 



ANTIQUITIES. 177 

shells. These are found with more or less frequency 
on the shores of every State from Connecticut south- 
ward along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Some 
of them are of enormous extent, covering acres of 
ground, and of a singular height. For a long time 
it was a debateable point whether they belonged to the 
domain of the geologist or antiquarian; later researches 
have awarded them to both, by distinguishing between 
those of natural and artificial origin.^ The latter are 
recognized by the presence of darts, pottery, charcoal, 
&c., in original connection with the shells and debris 
throughout the mass, by the presence of surface soil, 
roots, and stumps, in situ beneath the heap, by near- 
ness to an open fishing shore, and finally by the valves 
of the shell fish being asunder and their edges factured 
or burnt; on the other hand, whole closed shells as at 
Easton in Maryland, fragments of older fossils in ori- 
ginal connection, distinct stratification,^ and remoteness 
from any known oyster bed, as those of northern 
Texas, northern Georgia, and perhaps of Cumberland 
county. New Jersey, are convincing proofs of their 
natural deposition: 

Examples in Florida are numerous and striking. At 
Fernandina new town on Amelia island, a layer ex- 
tends along the face of the bluS" for one hundred and 
fifty yards and inland a quarter of a mile, sometimes 
three feet in depth, composed almost wholly of shells 
of the esculent oyster though with clams and conches 
sparsely intermixed. The valves are all separate, the 



1 There is an excellent paper on this topic by the well- 
known geologist, Lardner Vanuxem, in the Trans. Am. Assoc. 
Geol. and Naturalists, for 1840-42, p, 21. sq. 

* This is not an invariable proof however ; see Tuomey, 
Geol. Survey of S. Car., p. 199, note. 



178 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

shells in some places rotten, fractured and mixed with 
sand, charcoal, and pottery, while in others as clean 
and sound as if just from the hands of the oysterman. 

Similar deposits are found in various parts of the 
island ; on the main land opposite ; on both sides of 
the entrance to the St. Johns; on Anastasia island; 
and every where along the coast both of the Atlantic 
and the Gulf. One of the most remarkable is Turtle 
Mound on Musquito Lagoon, near New Smyrna. <' It 
is thirty feet high, composed almost altogether of sepa- 
rate oyster shells, it being rare to find an entire one ; 
there ?re also some conch and clam shells, both of 
which are, however, exceedingly scarce. That it is 
artificial there is no doubt on my mind. Some eight 
or ten years since we experienced a gale in this section 
of the country, from the northwest, which caused that 
portion of the mound facing the river, the steepest 
part, to wash and fall considerably ; being there a few 
days afterwards, I took considerable pains to examine 
the face of it, and found as low as the bottom and as 
1 high up as I could observe, numberless pieces of Indian 
pottery, and quantities of bones principally of fish, J 
but no human ones ; also charcoal and beds of ashes. 
The one on which I reside, opposite New Smyrna, is 
precisely of the same formation. Having had occasion 
some time back to dig a hole six or eight feet deep, I 
found precisely the same contents that I have described 
at Turtle Mound, with the addition of some few flint 
arrowheads.'' 

For this interesting description from the pen of a 
gentleman of the vicinity I am indebted to the kind- 
ness of Mr. F. L. Dancy, State Greologist of Florida; 
he adds from his own observation an account of one 
on Chrystal river, on the Gulf coast, four miles from 



ANTIQUITIES. 179 

its mouth. " The marsh of the river at that point is 
some twenty yards wide to the firm land, at which 
point this mound commences to rise; it is on all sides 
nearly perpendicular, the faces covered with brush and 
trees to which the curious have to cling to effect an 
ascent. It is about forty feet in height, the top sur- 
face nearly level, about thirty feet across, and covered 
with magnolia, live-oak, and other forest trees, some of 
them four feet in diameter. Its form is that of a 
truncated cone, and as far as can be judged from ex- 
ternal appearance, it is composed exclusively of oyster 
shells and vegetable mould. These shells are all sepa- 
rated. The mound was evidently thrown up by the 
Indians for a lookout, as the Gulf can be distinctly 
seen from its summit. There are no oysters growing 
at this time within four or five miles of it.'' 

Other shell heaps are met with along the coast but 
none equalling in magnitude that seen by Sir Charles 
LyelU on Cannon's Island at the mouth of the Alta- 
maha, covering ten acres of ground, ''elevated in some 
places ten feet and on an average five feet above the 
general level," and which this eminent geologist attri- 
butes exclusively to the Indians, or the vast beds of 
Gnathodon Cuncatus, on Mobile Bay, described by Mr. 
Hale,3 which, however, are probably of natural forma- 
tion, though containing quantities of human bones, 
/ pottery, images, &c. 

It is strange that we find no notices of the formation 
of these heaps by the early travellers; I do not re- 
member to have met with any except a line in Cabeza 
de Vaca, where, speaking of a tribe on the Gulf, he 

' Second Visit to the United States, Vol. I., p. 252. 
2 Am, Jour, of Science, Vol. XI., (2 ser.) pp. 164-74. 



180 FLORIDIAN PENINSULA. 

says their houses were " built of mats on heaps of 
oyster shells/'^ 

Along Manatee river I noticed numerous small heaps 
of conches, attributable to the later Indians, and in 
the post-pliocene shellblufFs at the mouth of this river, 
nearly twenty feet in height composed largely of a 
species of Pyrida^^ I found numerous fragments of a 
coarse, ill-marked, pottery, not, however, where the i 
shells were unbroken and clean, but where they were 
fragmentary, mixed with charcoal, ashes and dirt, and 
never more than three feet below the surface. The 
singular hillocks, whose formation is a geological enigma 
not readily solved, so frequent along the St. Johns, 
vast aggregations of Helices with some Unios and 
other fresh water shells in connection, without admix- 
ture of earth, in some cases thirty feet high, and ir- 
regularly stratified, are not to be mistaken for those of 
artificial construction, though from the frequency of 
Indian relics found in them, they seem to have been a 
chosen place of burial for the aboriginal tribes. 

Among the relics dating from a later period are the 
f< Indian Old Fields." These are portions of land 
once cleared and cultivated by the Seminoles, and are 
found wherever the fertility of the soil promised favor- 
ably for agriculture. They are very abundant in Ala- 
chua, where, says Bartram,^ <•<■ almost every step dis- 

1 Le caseloro sono edificate di stuore sopra scorze d'ostriche, 
e sopra di esse dormono sopra cuoi d'animali. Relatione que 
fece Alvaro Nunez, detto Capo di Vaca, Ramusio, Viaggi, T. 
III., fol. 317., E. 

2 On the geology of these bluffs, see the articles by Mr. Allen , 
in the first, and Mr. Conrad in the second volume of the Am. 
Jour. Science. (Second series.) 

3 Travels, p. 198. 



ANTIQUITIES. 181 

covers traces of ancient human habitation," reminding 
us of the time '^ when the Indians could assemble by 
thousands at ball play and other juvenile diversions 
and athletic exercises on these then happy fields and 
green plains." Such is the tenacity of the soil for 
retaining impressions, that the marks of tillage by 
which these are distinguished from the Spanish old 
fields are easily seen and readily discriminated, even 
after they are covered by a dense growth of trees. 



16 



APPENDIX I 



THE SILVER SPRINa. 

The geological formation of Florida gives rise to 
springs and fountains of such magnitude and beauty, 
that they deserve to be ranked with the great fresh- 
water lakes, the falls of Niagara, and the Mississippi 
river, as grand hydrographical features of the North 
American continent. The most remarkable are the 
Wakulla, twelve miles from Tallahassie, of great depth 
and an icy coldness, which is the best known, and has 
been described by the competent pen of Castlenau and 
others, the Silver Spring and the Manatee Spring. 
The latter is on the left bank of the Suwannee, forty- 
five miles from its mouth, and is so named from 
having been a favorite haunt of the sea-cow, ( Triche- 
chus Manatus,) whose bones, discolored by the sulphuret 
of iron held in solution by the water, are still found 
there. 

The Silver Spring, in some respects the most remark- 
able of the three, is in the centre of Marion county, ten 
miles from the Ocklewaha, into which its stream flows, 
and six miles from Ocala, the county seat. In Decem- 
ber, 1856, I had an opportunity to examine it with 
the aid of proper instruments, which I did with much 
care. It has often been visited as a natural curiosity, 
and is considered by tourists one of the lions of the 



184 APPENDIX I. 

State. To be appreciated ia its full beauty, it should 
be approached from the Ocklewaha. For more than a 
week I had been tediously ascending this river in a 
pole-bargOj wearied with the monotony of the dank and 
gloomy forests that everywhere shade its inky stream/ 
when one bright morning a sharp turn brought us into 
the pellucid waters of the Silver Spring Run. A few 
vigorous strokes and we had left behind us the cypress 
swamps and emerged into broad, level savannas, that 
stretched miles away on either hand to the far-oflF pine 
woods that, like a frame, shut in the scene. In the 
summer season these prairies, clothed in the luxuri- 
ance of a tropical vegetation, gorgeously decked with 

1 The peculiar hue of the whole St. Johns system of streams 
has been termed by various travellei'S a light brown, light red, 
coflFee color, rich umber, and beer color. In the sun it is 
that of a weak lye, but in the shade often looks as black as 
ink. The water is quite translucent and deposits no sedi- 
ment. The same phenomenon is observed in the low country 
of Carolina, New Jersey, and Lake Superior, and on a large 
scale in the Rio Negro, Atababo. Temi, and others of South 
America. In the latter, Humboldt (Ansichten der Natur, B. 
]., p. 2G3-4) ascribes it "to a solution of carburetted hydro- 
gen, to the luxuriance of a tropical vegetation, and to the 
quantity of plants and herbs on the ground on which they 
flow." In Florida, the vast marshes and hammocks, covered 
the year round with water from a few inches to two feet in 
depth, yet producing such rank vegetation as to block up the 
rivers with floating islands, are doubtless the main cause. 
The Hillsboro, Suwannee, and others, flowing through the 
limestone lands into the Gulf, are on the other hand remark- 
able for the clarity of their streams. I have drank this 
natural decoction when it tasted and smelt so strongly of 
decayed vegetable matter as almost to induce nausea. A fact 
not readily explained is that while the dark waters of other 
regions are marked by a lack of fish and crocodiles, a free- 
dom from stinging musquitoes, a cooler atmosphere and 
greater salubrity, nothing of the kind occurs on these 
streams. 



APPENDIX I. 185 

innumerable flowers, and alive with countless birds 
and insects of brilliant hues, ofl"er a spectacle that 
once seen can never be forgotten. 

But far more strangely beautiful than the scenery 
around is that beneath — the subaqueous landscape. 
At times the bottom is clothed in dark-green sedge 
waving its long tresses to and fro in the current, now 
we pass over a sunken log draperied in delicate aquatic 
moss thick as ivy, again the scene changes and a bot- 
tom of greyish sand throws in bright relief concentric 
arcs of brilliantly white fragments of shells deposited 
on the lower side of ripple marks in a circular basin. 
Far below us, though apparently close at hand, enor- 
mous trout dash upon their prey or patiently lie in 
wait undisturbed by the splash of the poles and the 
shouts of the negroes, huge cat-fish rest sluggishly on 
the mud, and here and there, every protuberance and 
bony ridge distinctly visible, the dark form of an alli- 
gator is distended on the bottom or slowly paddles up 
the stream. Thus for ten miles of an almost straight 
course, east and west, is the voyager continually sur- 
prised with fresh beauties and unimagined novelties. 

The width of the stream varies from sixty to one 
hundred and twenty-five feet, its average greatest 
depth about twenty, the current always quite rapid. 
For about one mile below its head, forests of cypress, 
maple, ash, gum, and palmetto adorn the banks with 
a pleasing variety of foliage. The basin itself is some- 
what elliptical in form, the exit being at. the middle of 
one side; its transverse diameter measures about one 
hundred and fifty yards, (N. E., S. W.,) its conjugate 
one hundred yards. Easterly it is bordered by a 
cypress swamp, while the opposite bank is hidden by 
a dense, wet hammock. A few yards from the brink 
16* 



186 . APPENDIX I. 

opposite the exit runs a limestone ridge of moderate 
elevation covered with pine and jack-oak. 

The principal entrance of the water is at the north- 
eastern extremity. Here a subaqueous limestone bluff 
presents three craggy ledges, between the undermost of 
which and the base is an orifice, about fifteen feet in 
length by five in height, whence the water gushes with 
great violence. Another and smaller entrance is at the 
opposite extremity. The maximum depth was at the 
time of my visit forty-one feet. The water is tasteless, 
presents no signs of mineral matter in solution, and so 
perfectly diaphanous that the smallest shell is entirely 
visible on the bottom of the deepest portion. Slowly 
drifting in a canoe over the precipice I could not 
restrain an involuntary start of terror, so diflScult was 
it, from the transparency of the supporting medium for 
the mind to appreciate its existence. When the sun- 
beams fall full upon the water, by a familiar optical 
delusion, it seems to a spectator on the bank that the 
bottom and sides of the basin are elevated, and over 
the whole, over the frowning crags, the snow-white 
shells, the long sedge, and the moving aquatic tribes, 
the decomposed light fliogs its rainbow hues, and all 
things float in a sea of colors, magnificent and im- 
pressive beyond description. What wonder that the 
untaught children of nature spread the fame of this 
marvellous fountain to far distant climes, and under 
the stereoscopic power of time and distance came to 
regard it as the life-giving stream, whose magic waters 
washed away the calamities of age and the pains of 
disease, round whose fortunate shores youths and 
maidens ever sported, eternally young and eternally 
joyous ! 

During my stay I took great pains to ascertain the 



APPENDIX I. 187 

exact temperature of the water and from a number of 
observations made at various hours of the day ob- 
tained a conj?tant result of 73. 2°^ Fahrenheit. This 
is higher than the mean annual temperature of the 
locality, which, as determined by a thermometrical 
record kept at Fort King near Ocala for six years, is 
70.00°; while it is lower than that of the small min- 
eral springs so abundant throughout the peninsula, 
which I rarely found less than 75°. It is probable, 
however, that this is not a fixed temperature but varies 
with the amount of water thrown out. Competent 
observers, resident on the spot, informed me that a 
variation of three feet in the vertical depth of the 
basin had been known to occur in one year, though 
this was far greater than usual. The time of highest 
water is shortly after the rainy season, about the month 
of September, a fact that indicates the cause of the 
change. 

Visiting the spring when at a medium height I en- 
joyed peculiar advantages for calculating the amount 
of water given forth. The method I used was the 
convenient and sufl&ciently accurate one of the log and 
line, the former of three inches radius, the latter 
one hundred and two feet in length. In estimating 
the size of the bed I chose a point about a quarter of 
a mile from the basin. The results were calculated 
according to the formulae of Buat. After making all 
possible allowance for friction, for imperfection of in- 
struments, and inaccuracy of observation, the average 
daily quantity of water thrown out by this single 
spring reaches the enormous amount of more than 
three hundred million gallons ! 

Numbers such as this are beyond the grasp of the 
human intellect, bewildering rather than enlightening 



188 APPENDIX I. 

the mind. Let us take another unit and compare it 
with the most stupendous hydrographical works of 
man that have been the wonders of the world. Most 
renowned of these are the aqueducts of Kome. In 
the latter half of the first century, when Frontinus 
was inspector, the public register indicated a daily 
supply of fourteen thousand and eighteen quinaria, 
about one hundred and ninety-six million gallons. Or 
we can choose modern instances. The city of London is 
said to require forty million gallons every twenty-four 
hours. New York about one-third, and Philadelphia 
one-quarter as much. Thus we see that this one fount 
furnishes more than enough water to have satisfied the 
wants of Rome in her most imperial days, to supply 
plenteously eight cities as large as London, a score of 
New Yorks, or thirty Philadelphias. By the side of 
its stream the far-famed aqueduct of Lyons, yielding 
one million two hundred and nine thousand six hun- 
dred gallons daily, or the Croton aqueduct, whose 
maximum diurnal capacity is sixty million gallons, 
seems of feeble importance, while the stateliest canals 
of Solomon, Theodoric, or the Ptolemies dwindle to 
insignificant rivulets. 

Neither is this the emergence of a sunken river as 
is the case with the Wakulla fountain, but is a spring 
in the strictest sense of the word, deriving its suste- 
nance from the rains that percolate the porous tertiary 
limestone that forms the central ridge of the peninsula. 

There are many other springs both saline, mineral, 
and of pure water, which would be looked upon as 
wonders in any country where such wonders were less 
abundant. Such are the Six Mile Spring (White 
Spring, Silver Spring), and the Salt Spring on the 
western shore of Lake George, a sulphur spring on 



APPENDIX T. 189 

Lake Monroe, one mile from Enterprise, another eight 
miles from Tampa on the Hillsboro' river, Gadsden's 
spring in Columbia county, the Blue spring on the 
•Ocklawaha, Orange Springs in Alachua county, the 
Oakhumke the source of the Withlacooche, and num- 
berless others of less note.^ Besides these, the other 
hydrographical features of the peninsula are unique 
and instructive, well deserving a thorough and special 
examination ; such are the intermittent lakes, which, 
like the famous Lake Kauten in Prussia, the Lugea 
Palus or Zirchnitzer See in the duchy of Carniola, and 
the classical Lake Fucinus, have their regular periods 
of annual ebb and flow; while the sinking rivers Santa 
Fe, Chipola, Econfinna, Ocilla and? others offer no lesa 
interesting objects of study than their analogues in 
the secondary limestone of Styria, in Istria, Carniola, 
Cuba, and other regions. 

When we ponder on the cause of these phenomena 
we are led to the most extraordinary conclusions. To 
explain them we are obliged to accept the opinion — 
which very many associated facts tend to substantiate 
— that the lower strata of the limestone formation of 
the peninsula have been hollowed out by the action of 
water into vast subterranean reservoirs, into enormous 
caverns that intersect and ramify, extending in some 
cases far under the bed of the adjacent ocean, through 
whose sunless corridors roll nameless rivers, and in 
whose sombre halls sleep black lakes. During the 
rainy season, gathering power in silence deep in the 
bowels of the earth, they either expend it quietly in 

1 For particulars concerning some of these, see Wm. Bar- 
tram, Travels, pp. 145, 165, 206, 230; Notices of E. Florida, 
by a recent Trav., pp. 28, 44; American Journal of Science, 
Vol. XXV., p. 1C5, I , (2 ser.) p. 39. 



190 APPENDIX I. 

fountains of surprising magnitude, or else, bursting 
forth in violent eruptions, rend asunder the overlying 
strata, forming the ^'lime sinks," and << bottomless 
lakes," common in many counties of Florida ; or 
should this occur beneath the ocean, causing the phe- 
nomenon of " freshening," sometimes to such an extent 
as to afford drinkable water miles from land, as oc- 
curred some years ago off Anastasia Island, and in 
January, 1857, near Key West, 



APPENDIX II. 



THE MUMMIES OF THE MISSISSIPPI 
VALLEY. 

A NUMBER of years ago considerable curiosity was 
excited by the discovery of mummies in Tennessee and 
Kentucky, and many theories were promulged regard- 
ing their origin, but I believe neither that nor their 
age has, as yet, been satisfactorily determined. 

Some were found as early as 1775, near Lexington, 
Kentucky, but we have no definite account of any 
before those exhumed September 2, 1810, in a cop- 
peras cjtve in Warren county, Tennessee, on the Cany 
fork of the Cumberland river, ten miles below the 
Falls. These were described in the Medical Repository 
by Mr. Miller, whose article was followed by another 
in the same periodical, illustrated by a sketch, in sup- 
port of the view that this discovery indicated the 
derivation of the Indians from the Malays and Tartars. 
The same pair was also described by Breckenridge and 
Flint a few years later. 

Shortly previous to 1813, two mummies were found 
in the Gothic avenue of the IMammoth Cave, and not 
long afterwards, (1814,) another in the Audabon 
avenue. 



192 APPENDIX II. 

The same year, several more were discovered in a 
nitre cave near Glasgow, Kentucky, by Thomas Mon- 
roe, who forwarded one to the American Antiquarian 
Society, described by Dr. Mitchell in the first volume 
of the publications of that body. 

Again, in 1828, two more were found in a complete 
state of preservation in a cave of West Tennessee, men- 
tioned in the American Journal of Science, (Vol. xxii. 
p. 124.) 

With that zest for the wonderful, for which antiqua- 
rians are somewhat famous, the idea that these remains 
could belong to tribes with whom the first settlers were 
acquainted, was rejected, and recourse was had to Ma- 
lays, South Sea Islanders, and the antipodes generally, 
for a more reasonable explanation. It was said that 
the envelopes of the bodies (all of which bore close 
resemblance among themselves) pointed to a higher 
state of the arts than existed among the Indians of the 
Mississippi Valley, and that the physical difi'erences, 
the color of the hair, &c., were irreconcileable. I 
think, however, it may be shown that these objections 
are of no weight, and that the bodies in question were 
interred at a comparatively late period. 

The wrappings consisted usually of deer skins, dressed 
and undressed, mats of split canes, some as much as 
sixty yards long, and a woven stuff called << blankets," 
<f sheets," and "cloth;" this was often either bordered 
with feathers of the wild turkey and other birds, or 
covered with them in squares and patterns. Their 
ages, as guessed from appearances, varied from ten 
years to advanced life. In several cases the mark of 
a severe blow on the head was seen, which must have 
caused the individual's death. Their stature was 



APPENDIX II. 193 

usually in conformity to their supposed age;* the 
weight of one, as given by Flint, six or eight pounds ; 
in all cases but one the hair of a "sorrel/^ 'i^foxy/' 
<' yellow" or "sandy" color; and they were usually 
found five or six feet below the surface. 

First, then, in our examination, the question arises, 
did the Indians of the Mississippi Valley, when first 
met by the whites, possess the art of manufacturing 
woven stufi" of the kind mentioned ? In answer we 
have the express words of the Inca,^ " These mantles 
the Indians of Florida make of a certain herb-like 
mallows, (malvas,) which has fibres like flax, (que 
tiene hebra, como lino,) and from the same they make 
thread, to which they give colors which remain most 
firmly." The next explorer was La Salle ; in Tonty's 
account of his expedition,^ he remarks that he saw in 
a council lodge of the Taencas, " sixty old men clothed 
in large white cloaks, which are made by the women 
from the bark of the mulberry tree." Still more to 
our purpose are the words of later writers, who men- 
tion the interweaving of feathers. Not only, says 
Dumont,* do the Indian women make garters and 
ribbons of the wool of the bufi'alo, (du laine du beuf,) 
but also a sort of mat of threads obtained from the 
bark of the linden, (tilleul,) "qu'elles couvrent de 
plumes de eigne des plus fines, attachees une li une 

1 Flint, (Travels, Let. XVI., p. 172,) says that neither of 
those found in 1810 measured more than four feet. This is 
an error. He only saw the female, whose age was not over 
fourteen, and th« squatting position in which the bo(Jy was, 
deceived him. 

2 Conq. de la Florida, Lib. V., P. IT., cap. VIIL 

3 In French's Hist. Coll. of La., Pt. I., p. 6L 

^ Mems. Hist, sur la Louisiane, T. I., pp 154-5. 

17 



194 APPENDIX II. 

ur cet toil.'^ Dupratz* mentions -similar cloaks of 
mulberry bark covered '' with the feathers of swans, 
turkeys, and India ducks," the fibres of the bark 
being twisted " about the thickness of packthread," 
and woven ^^ with a wrought border around the edges." 
Of the Indians of North Carolina, Lawson says,^ 
^< Their feather match-coats are very pretty, especially 
some of them which are made extraordinary charm- 
ing, containing several pretty figures, wrought in 
feathers, making them seem like a fine flower Silk- 
Shag." Other examples might be given, but these 
are sufficient. 

The cane mat was an article of daily use among the 
tribes wherever the cane grew, and was bartered to 
those where it did not. The Arkanzas, Taencas, Cenis, 
Natchez, and Gulf tribes, used it to cover their huts 3^ 
hence a piece even sixty yards long was no uncommon 
matter; while in one instance at least,'* we know that 
the eastern tribes rolled their dead in them, tying 
them fast at both ends. All the minor articles of 
ornament and dress, the bone and horn needles, the 
vegetable beads, &c., can be shown with equal facility 
to have been in general use among the natives.^ 

It has usually been supposed that these bodies were 
preserved by the chemical action of the nitriferous soil 
around them; but this does not account for their per- 

1 Hist, of Louisiana, Vol. II., p. 230. 

2 A New Account of Carolina, p. 191. 

3 Joutel, Jour. Hist, p. 218 ; Mems. of Sieur de Tonty, p. 
61 ; Dupratz, V. II., p. 22 ; Cabeza de Vaca. in Ramusio, T. 
III., fol. 317, E. 

■^ Lawson, ubi supra, p. 180. 

5 It was remarked of the mummy found in the Mammoth 
cave, " In the making of her dress there is no evidence of the 
use of any other machinery than bone and horn needles." 
(Collin's Kentucky, p. 257.) 



APPENDIX II. 195 

fection and extreme desiccation, inclosed as they were 
in such voluminous envelopes. Yet it is quite certain 
that the viscera were never absent, nor has any balm 
or gum been found upon them.* Hence, if artificially 
prepared, it must have been by protracted drying by 
fire, in a manner common among the ancient inhabi- 
tants of the Caroline islands, the Tahitians, the Guan- 
ches of Tenerifi"e, and still retained in some convents 
in the Levant. It is well known that in America the 
Popayans, the Nicaraguans, and the Caribs of the 
West Indies had this custom ;'^ but I believe that 
attention has not been called to the fact, that this 
very mode of preserving the dead was used more or 
less by the Indians of the Mississippi Valley. The 
southern tribes of Mississippi and Alabama dried the 
corpse of their chief over a slow fire, placed it in the 
temple as an object of adoration till the death of his 
successor, and then transferred it to the bottom or 
cellar (fond) of the building.* Analogous usages, 
modifications of this and probably derived from it, 
prevailed among the tribes of North Carolina, Vir- 
ginia, and the Pacific coast,* while we have seen that 
Bristock asserts the same of the Apalachites. That a 
cave should be substituted for a temple, or that the 
bodies should be ultimately inhumed, cannot excite 
our surprise when we recall how subject the Indians 

1 Archseologia Americana, Vol. I., p, 230. 

2 Whence the French verb boucaner, and the English buc- 
caneer. Possibly the custom may have been introduced 
among the tribes of the northern shore of the Gulf by the 
Caribs. 

3 Dumont, Mems., Hist, sur la Louisiane, T. I , p. 240. 

-i De Bry, Peregrinationes in America, P. I., Tab. XXII. : 
Beverly, Hist, de la Virginie, Liv. III., pp. 285-6 ; Lawson, 
Acc't of Carolina, p. 182 ; Schoolcraft, Hist. Ind. Tribes, 
Vol. v., p. 693. 



196 APPENDIX II. 

were to sudden attacks, how solicitous that their dead 
should not be disturbed,^ and how caves were ever 
regarded by them as natural temples for their gods 
and most fit resting places for their dead.^ 

The rarity of the mummies may be easily accounted 
for as only the bodies of the chiefs were thus preserved. 
Yet it is a significant fact that a body is rarely, if ever, 
found alone. Moreover, in every case of which we 
have special description, these are of different sexes, 
and one, the female, and the youngest, sometimes 
apparently not more than twelve or fourteen years of 
age, evidently died by violence. How readily these 
seemingly unconnected facts take place and order, and 
how intelligible they become, when we learn that at 
the death of a ruler the Indians sacrificed and buried 
with him one or two of his wives, and in some tribes 
the youngest was always the chosen victim of this 
cruel superstition. 2 

The light color of the hair is doubtless caused by 
the nitriferous soil with which it had been so long 
surrounded; a supposition certified by one instance, 
where, in consequence of the unusually voluminous 
wrappings, and perhaps a later interment, it retained 
the black color of that of the true Indian.* 

Though most of these references relate to nations 
not dwelling immediately in the area of country where 

1 See the Inca, Lib. IV., caps. VIII., IX. 

2 See the Am. Jour, of Science, Vol. I , p. 429 ; Vol. XXII., 
p. 124; Collin's Kentucky, pp. 177, 448, 520, 541; Brad- 
lord, Am. Antiqs., Pt, I. p. 29. 

3 Dumont, Mems. Hist , T. II., pp. 178, 238; Dupratz, Vol. 
II., p. 221, and for the latter fact, Mems. of the Sieur de 
Tonty, p. 61. 

^ Medical Repository, Vol. XVI., p. 148. This opinion is 
endorsed by Bradford, Am. Antiqs., p. 31. 



APPENDIX II. 197 

tlie mummies are found, it is quite unnecessary for me 
to refer in this connection to those numerous and valid 
arguments, derived both from tradition and archaeology, 
that prove beyond doubt that this tract, and indeed the 
whole Ohio valley, had changed masters shortly before 
the whites explored it, and that its former possessors 
when not destroyed by the invaders, had been driven 
south. 

Hence we may reasonably infer, that as no article 
found upon the mummies indicates a higher degree of 
art than was possessed by the southern Indians, as the 
physical changes are owing to casual post mortem 
circumstances, as we have positive authority that cer- 
tain tribes were accustomed to preserve the corpses of 
their chiefs; and lastly, as we have many evidences to 
show that such tribes, or those closely associated with 
with them, once dwelt further north than they were 
first found, consequently the deposition of the mum- 
mies must be ascribed to a race who dwelt near the 
region where they occur, at the time of its exploration 
by Europeans. 



n 



APPENDIX III. 



THE PRECIOUS METALS POSSESSED BY 
THE EARLY FLORIDIAN INDIANS. 

The main idea that inspired the Spanish expeditions 
to Florida was the hope of discovering riches there, 
equal to the gorgeous opulence of Peru and Mexico. 
Although the country was supposed to be north of the 
auriferous zone — in accordance with which geological 
notion in his map of the world (1529) Diego de Ribero 
inscribes on the land marked ^' Tierra de Garay," 
north of the Gulf of Mexico, now West Florida, 
*' This land is poor in gold, as it lies too far from the 
tropic of Cancer"^ — yet an abiding faith in its riches 
was kept alive by Spanish traders obtaining from time 
to time morsels of gold from the natives. As early 
as the first voyage of De Leon (1512), they possessed 
and used it as an article of barter in small quantities.^ 
The later explorers, Narvaez, De Soto, Ribaut, and 

1 Humboldt, Krit. Untersucli, neber die Hist. Entwickelung 
der Geog. Kentnisse der neuen Welt, B. I., s. 322 ; the same 
reason is given by De Laet, Descrip. Ind. Occident. Lib. IV., 
cap. XIV. 

^ " Guanines de ore," Navarrete, Viages, Tom. III., p. 52 ; 
Ilerrera, Dec. I., Lib. IX., cap. XI. 



200 APPENDIX III. 

Laudonniere, report both gold and silver, but never, 
as far as their own observations went, in any abun- 
dance. The savages were always eagerly questioned 
as to its origin and always returned one of two 
answers; either that they had pilfered it from the 
wrecks of vessels driven on their coasts, or else they 
referred the inquirer to a distant and mountainous 
country to the north, known both to the nations on 
the Grulf of Mexico, those at the extreme south of the 
peninsula, and those on the Atlantic coast as far north 
as the Savannah river, as Apalache. Here, said the 
rumors, the men wore cuirasses of gold and shields of 
burnished silver, while the women were impeded in 
their dancing by the weight of their golden ornaments 
and strings of pearls. We have seen that this name 
was at one period applied to a large area of country, 
and hence have no difficulty in appreciating the error 
that Narvaez committed when he supposed the small 
town of that name east of the Apalachicola to contain 
the major part of the nation. Fontanedo, whose long 
residence among the Indians renders him one of our 
best authorities on certain points, says expressly that 
the snowy mountains of Onagatano whence the gold 
was obtained were the furthermost possessions of Apa- 
lache} 

There is a general similarity in the accounts of the 
direction and remoteness of the mines. The coast 
tribes north of the St. Johns river had pieces of sieroa 
pira, red metal, which was tested by a goldsmith who 
accompanied Laudonniere and found to be pure gold. 
When asked where this was obtained they pointed to 
the north. Another chief who gave them slips of sil- 

1 Mais on n'y trouve pas d'or, parce qu'elle est eloigne des 
mines d'Onagatono, situees dans les montagnes neigeuses 
d'Onagatono dernieres possessions d'Abolachi, Memoire, p. 82. 



APPENDIX III. 201 

ver said it came from a country at the foot of lofty 
mountains ten long days' journey inland, towards the 
north. A third had small grains of gold, silver, and 
copper, procured, according to his own account, by 
washing the sands of a creek that flowed at the base of 
lofty mountains five or six days journey in a north- 1 
westerly direction. The artist Le Moyne de Morgues, 
drawing somewhat on his imagination, represents in 
his forty-first sketch this method of cleaning it. Hence 
on some maps of a very early period the southern 
Alleghanies bear the name Apalatcy 3Iontes Auriferi. 
Years afterwards, rumors derived from the Indians 
were rife among the Spanish colonists of a " very rich 
and exceeding great city, called La Grand Copal, 
among the mountains of Gold and Chrystal," fifteen 
or twenty days journey northwest of St. Augustine. ^ 

Now as the gold mines of Georgia and Carolina lie 
about three hundred miles north or northwest of 
Florida, such accounts as these can leave no reasonable 
doubt but that they were known to the Indians, and 
to a certain extent worked before the arrival of the 
white man. Indeed, may we not impute to them the 
ancient and unrecorded mining operations, signs of 
which are occasionally met with in the gold country of 
Georgia ? Such are the remains of what are called 
" furnaces,'^ the marks of excavations, various rude 
metallurgical instruments, the buried log houses, and 
other tokens of a large population in some remote past, 
found from time to time in the vicinity of Dahloncga 
and various parts of the Nacooche valley.^ These 

1 Pedro Morales, in Hackluyt, Vol^.JIL, p.* 432. 
'^ See Lanman's Letters from the Allegheny Mountains, pp. 
9, 26, 27 ; White, Hist. Coll. of Georgia, pp. 487-8. 



202 APPENDIX III. 

were referred by the finders to De Soto, who offers a 
favorite and ready explanation for any construction of 
unknown age, in that part of our country ; thus I have 
been told that the bone mounds in Florida were the 
burial places of his soldiers, and on one occasion a 
post pliocene bank of shells on Tampa Bay was pointed 
out to me as the ruins of one of his forts. It is un- 
necessary to add that the soldiers under this ill-fated 
leader spent no time in digging gold either in north 
Georgia or anywhere else. 

That in the course of barter small quantities of the 
metals here obtained — for we must ascribe to ship- 
wrecks the '< lumps of gold several pounds in weight" 
said to have been found in modern times on the shores 
of Florida and Carolina^ — should have gradually pro- 
ceeded to the nations on the shores of the Atlantic 
and the Gulf of Mexico, and even to the Caloosas in 
South Florida, four hundred miles from their starting 
point, will not astonish any one. acquainted with the 
extent to which the transportation of metals was car- 
ried by the aborigines in other portions of the continent. 

1 Humboldt, Island of Cuba, p. 131, note. 



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